A British mother is hoping social media will help reunite her heartbroken daughter with the stuffed doggie she lost last week in Toronto.
Julie Letton and her family of four from Exeter, England, stopped into Toronto’s Eaton Centre on Friday, to pass some time before catching their flight home to the U.K..
They went in a few shops, took a washroom break, had some lunch, and caught a movie across the street.
Then, less than an hour before they were due to leave for the airport, Letton’s six-year-old daughter, Phoebe, asked her mother if she was holding her beloved stuffed animal, Sleepy Dog.
Letton was horrified to realize she wasn’t and had no idea when anyone had last seen the pink and white stuffed animal.
Phoebe, who’s carried Sleepy Dog with her everywhere since she was a one-year-old, broke into sobs and told her mother she might have left Sleepy Dog on a baby changing table in one of the mall’s washrooms.
Letton tried calling the Eaton Centre offices, but they informed her no one had turned in the pink stuffed dog.
“What happens if we miss our flight?” Phoebe asked her mum.
Letton had to tell her daughter they had no time left to re-trace their steps and would have to leave Sleepy Dog behind.
With her inconsolable daughter at her side, Julie used the taxi ride to the airport to send out an appeal on Facebook.
“Such a long shot but here begins the quest to bring him home,” she wrote.. “... Please cast the net wide, lovely people.”
Her post has since been shared more than 14,000 times. Even some members of the Toronto Police Service have helped spread the word on Twitter.
Letton has been stunned by how quickly her appeal has spread and overwhelmed with messages from strangers offering to help.
‘A few local friends were skeptical with my attempt to use social media for help. But now they’ve seen the response and all the shares and even they can’t quite believe it,’ Letton told CTVNews.ca by phone from Exeter.
Letton admits she’s been staying up late to answer messages, worried that she might miss the one message that helps them find Sleepy Dog.
The family has had to start a separate Facebook campaign page called “Sleepy Dog Lost in Toronto” and Letton joked that she might need her own personal assistant soon to respond to all the notes.
Through it all, Phoebe is “coping really well,” her mother says, but adds it’s hard for her daughter to overhear the family talking about her favourite stuffed dog.
“It’s too painful. If you’re ever lost something dear to you, you might understand. For a little one, she’s hurting a lot,” Letton said.
The loss of Sleepy Dog was a heartbreaking ending to what had been up a wonderful trip to Canada. The family had spent time visiting an uncle in Brandon, Man., seeing Niagara Falls, and visiting friends in Haliburton, in Ontario’s Muskoka region.
Everywhere they went, they made sure to keep track of Sleepy Dog – until that last afternoon.
Letton says she’s in touch with Eaton Centre management and security staff, but as the days go on, it’s starting to become a little less likely the much-loved pink and white stuffy will turn up.
“It’s not looking that good at the moment, I have to say. It’s possible that someone might have picked him up with the best of intentions of handing him in, but hasn’t been able to yet,” Letton said.
“We’re obviously trying to stay hopeful.”
