Howard Dukes|South Bend Tribune
SOUTH BEND — The Rev. Canneth Lee saidRome is the definition of a therapy dog.
Lee, First District Common Council member and pastor of Kingdom Christian Center Church, has had a difficult year. Most recently, he and his family had to deal with his nephew, Tyler Brown, being seriously injured after being shot in October. Fortunately, Tyler is recovering.
"We've experienced a lot of loss in our family," Lee said. "We've buried more than 12 family members this year."
Lee said that his wife, Charisse, got the puppy to help deal with the stress of those losses and to help them deal with some of the things that come along withpastoring a church.
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"And from the moment she got him, he just connected and it was like he had been in the family forever," Lee said.
Rome even got along with the family's other dog.
Lee had plans for Rome as the city and his district slowly emerged from the pandemic.
"One of the things that I was planning to do as I start interacting with people again was walking with him and just having something that people could relate to, because in this area, people are dog-lovers," he said.
Lee envisioned Rome as being sort of the district's pet. Unfortunately, Lee found himself in a situationmany pet-lovers must confront when he let his two pets out on Dec. 4 and Rome went missing.
"When I got up and started lookingaroundhe wasn’tin the yard or in the house," Lee said. "Istarted looking around the neighborhood, and evenwentto my neighbor's house and nobody had saw him."
One neighbor told Lee a couple had knocked on the door. The couple had a dogthey said was lost and asked if the dog belonged to him. The neighbor, though did not realize the dog belonged to Lee.
Eventually, Lee turned to Facebook, posting a photo of the dog and pleading for help, and that plea came to the attention of the local Facebook group South Bend Lost and Found Pets.
"I was brought into a whole new world that I knew nothing about," Lee said.
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Melody Heintzelman founded the group in 2013, according to Tina Donica, who is vice president and group administrator. Donica said at least 27,000 people are members of the group, which is committed to locating lost dogs, cats and other pets and returning them to their owners.
New owners post information on lost pets daily. Other times, people post pictures of lost animals they've found, hoping the owner will see. Donica said the site gets at least 10 new posts each day. With 27,000 sets of eyes looking for lost pets, South Bend Lost and Found Pets has a lot of people looking for animals like Rome.
There are a few thingsowners of lost pets can do to help South Bend Lost and Found Pets be reunited with their pets, according to Donica.
"The first thing we tell them when they’re posting is to make sure they post like a cross street of where the animal went lost because that really helps us to tag peoplein thatarea," Donica said."With close to 27,000 members on our page, it really helps to know who lives around there and we can tag them and then they will tag people that they know."
Donica also encourages the owners of lost pets to immediately contact the St. Joseph County Humane Society and the South Bend Animal Resource Center and file lost animal reports.
Lee was also encouraged to reach out to humane societies, and animal control agenciesin neighboring counties, including Elkhart, Berrien, LaPorte and Marshall.
Lee said his case shows the reach of South Bend Lost and Found Pets. The Facebook posts elicited responses from as far away as Vicksburg, Mich., a town in Kalamazoo County.
A woman had a similar-looking dog, but that puppy turned out not to be Rome. Still, the woman reached out and she even sent Lee a photo of her dog, Rory.
The group's success in getting a dog or cat back to its owner often depends on how quickly South Bend Lost and Found Pets can get the word out and the circ*mstances surrounding how the pet went missing.
In this case, a couple found Rome and actually tried to return the dog.
"This means there is someone that knows where this dog is, so we just have to get the word out and eithera person is going to ratthem out or these people are going to be honest," Donica added.
Donica said the members who join Lost and Found Pets have either lost pets or helped to locate and return a pet to their owners.
"Our group helped us find one of my dogs who was gone for five days in the snowstorm back in 2015," Donica said.
That means she knows the joy felt by people who often consider the pet that has gone missing to be a part of their families. That is particularly true during the pandemic, when people were separated from family and friends, meaning human's best friend could have been the only thing standing between a person and total isolation.
"People get very excited," she said. "It's afeel-good moment when we can be a part of that reuniting thatanimalwith their owners."
Email South Bend Tribune reporter, Howard Dukes at hdukes@gannett.com
Follow him on Twitter:@DukesHoward
Have you seen Rome the dog?
The Rev. Canneth Lee is offering a reward for the return of his dog Rome. Call 574-323-1410 with information.
