'Leash your dog if you cannot recall them': Shawn Thia rushes stranger's dog hit by lorry to vet

Shiba Inus are loveable dogs, but their cheeky tendencies can cause harm to themselves if not managed by a responsible owner.

Shawn Thia shared a harrowing encounter with one in his Instagram Stories yesterday (June 27).

"Leash your f****** dog if you cannot recall them," the local actor, 28, prefaced the tale.

The background image showed blood on his car seat.

"I was on the highway and I saw this man holding a small Shiba Inu sitting on the floor. The dog was bleeding out of his mouth," he wrote. "I stopped and got them in, quickly rushed them to the nearby vet."

Shawn added that the dog's owner had told him that he "didn't expect the dog to run away" but that it had run onto the highway and been hit by a lorry.

He wrote that, while he understood Shibas to be "escape artists" who liked to evade humans like it was their hobby, people should either leash their dogs before they open their doors or not purchase the breed.

Shawn continued that it was "nothing" that the dog left blood and faeces in his car, but that people should "be responsible" with their dog's life.

In his next Story, Shawn gave an update: "I went to check back on the pup. He did not make it. Too much blood loss.

"Brought back for cremation already before I got there."

He apologised for the "morbid Stories" but asked his audience once again to leash their dogs.

Shawn then shared a video lying on the floor with his own dogs — Aiko and Miyo — adding that he was "so glad to have these two buggers".

"What a whirlwind of a day. I love my dogs," he wrote.

How to teach recall skills?

According to the American Kennel Club, "reliable recall" is when an owner can be "99.99 per cent sure" that the dog will "enthusiastically respond" when asked to come.

It can be trained "in a slow, low-distraction environment" like one's home.

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They recommend starting by showing the dog a high-value item like a treat or toy, and to praise it when it comes towards you. After the dog reliably looks at the owner and moves towards them, the owner can add a verbal cue like "come" or "here".

Then they can raise the stakes by issuing the command before showing the reward to their dog, or by slowly adding distance within the training space.

In a time of emergency, they also recommend not running towards the dog as it may see the action as a "game" to run even further away. Instead, they suggest running away from the dog to encourage it to chase the owner, thus removing it from harm's way.

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drimac@asiaone.com

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