Finding Rajin: How Social Media Gave a  Family Their Dog Back

When CWS Team Member Ethan lost his beloved German Shepherd, Rajin, on a cold January morning this year, the team quickly put together a campaign to aid in his rescue.

What could have taken weeks of search and rescue, only took a short 24 hours due to the quick spread of the campaign on social networks and many kind people within the Rochester community.

A Quick Post to Social Media

CWS’s Chief Happiness Officer and Owner, Alan De Keyrel, quickly took to social media when he heard the news. He pulled up the CWS Facebook page and wrote a post. He also set up an ad campaign boosting the signal of his post, beyond his friends, to everyone in the Rochester area.

Here is that post:

Reaching the Community

In less than a day, we saw amazing responses to the ad. Here are the stats:

• Our post reached nearly 20,000 individuals in the Rochester and surrounding area
• Our post was shared over 330 times, increasing the reach and reducing the cost to reach new audiences
• We had 474 individuals interact with the post (like, comment, picture click, or “read more” click)

Throughout the next 24 hours, most of the people who called to report that they had seen Rajin said that they also had seen our ad on Facebook. An ad was also donated on the Rochester Now app, a local Rochester application run by Nate Nordstrom.

Finding Raj

People quickly joined the fight to find Raj. Dozens of people took calls or searched for Raj around town. Dogs with tracking ability took to the woods with their owners looking for any sign.

The team found trails that led us to the general area where Rajin was wandering. Our last tip came in right before noon on Sunday from someone who had seen our ad about Raj a few hours earlier. The CWS Team was running around Essex Park with a few recent hints that he may be looming around that area, and we got the call just as we were getting back to our cars. He was seen crossing the road not even a half mile away.

We made our way over there, and after a little bit of searching, Rajin was found!

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Thank You

Although the ad helped us spread the word to thousands of people, it was the actions taken by several kind people that truly helped us find Rajin. Without the Rochester community helping in a moment of need, Raj would have never been found. Sometimes a like, comment, or share can truly make a difference in someone’s life.