By Christine M. Quirk — [email protected]
A Facebook post, town employees, and a little bit of luck all combined to bring a beloved stuffed dog home to his boy after the plushie was lost at the town tree lighting.
“We got to the tree lighting, and I’m looking at [my son], and I’m thinking, ‘Where’s Doggie?’” dad Tom Mahony recalled. “And Doggie was not there.”
Two-year-old Simon Mahony sleeps with two special friends, Doggie and Bear, every night.
The bear had belonged to Simon’s brother, Max. Doggie was a gift from his uncle and aunt.
“It’s funny because we had a lot of stuffed animals when Simon was little, and for some reason, he really took to this one,” Mahony said.
An uncommon excursion
Mahony said the toys don’t usually leave the house, but on December 1, as the family was preparing to go to the annual tree lighting, Simon was still napping.
“We had to wake him up because we didn’t want to miss seeing Santa,” Mahony said.
Simon was unhappy about being awakened, so his parents allowed him to take his furry friends along. He was still upset when they parked near Concord Center, so his mom, Jenny Schloss, tucked Doggie and Bear in the stroller.
Somewhere on their five-minute walk down Lowell Road, Doggie went missing.
“I retraced [my steps],” Mahony said. “I went back to the car, using the flashlight on my phone, and then looked on the way back. I figured there’s a lot of people that walked that path, and someone must have picked it up, but the chances that we’d connect with them didn’t seem likely.”
A police officer suggested Mahony contact the Concord Recreation Department, which had put on the event. In the meantime, he said, he was texting his sister-in-law to see where they could find another stuffed dog if needed.
Schloss, however, said she “had faith” Doggie would make it home.
“I thought that when we didn’t see him, someone picked him up and turned him in,” she said.
Contact the authorities!
When Simon went to bed, his parents told him that Doggie had gone to the repair shop and would return soon. Later that evening, Mahony emailed Mardi Hutchinson at the Rec Department to ask if anyone had turned in the plush dog.
He also ordered a backup Doggie, just in case.
Hutchinson took a trip down Lowell Road, but Doggie was nowhere to be found. It turned out the family’s instinct about someone picking him up was correct. There was a quick response when Hutchinson posted on Facebook asking for help.
“I put him on [a] fire hydrant last night at the corner of Colonial Inn and Lowell Road!” Cassandra Price posted. “I hope he’s still there.”
He wasn’t — because Concord Public Works employees Tish Hopkins and Doug Lenox had rescued Doggie and brought him back to their building to dry off and spend the night. Hutchinson brought him to the Hunt building, where a grateful Mahony picked him up.
Mahony said Simon was “thrilled” to see Doggie back from the “repair shop.”
Doggie won’t be allowed back out anytime soon, and Mahony said he is grateful to both town employees and kind strangers.
“There’s a lot of pieces that have to come together for that connection to be made,” he said.
