09/05/2026
When the flood came, Sweetie's family tried to call her to safety.
But Sweetie could not hear them.
The deaf little dog lived with her family in Nepal's Nuwakot district, one of the areas devastated when catastrophic flash floods tore through the region on August 26, 2026. Water, mud and debris destroyed communities and forced families to flee with little time to save what they loved.
Sweetie's family knew the water was coming.
Her owner, Shoba Shrestha, later explained that Sweetie was inside the home when they tried to get her to move somewhere safer. But Sweetie is deaf, and she could not hear their calls.
In the chaos, the family was forced to leave without her.
Then came the waiting.
Five days passed.
Across Nepal, rescuers were searching through communities buried in mud and debris while thousands of families waited for news about missing loved ones. The scale of the disaster was enormous, with hundreds killed and thousands still unaccounted for.
But Shrestha went back.
And amid everything the flood had destroyed, she found Sweetie alive.
News footage captured the moment the two were reunited. Shrestha sat beside her little dog, stroked her and carefully gave her water from a bottle. Sweetie had somehow survived the days they were separated.
The reunion carried heartbreak too.
According to Outlook India, the family had two dogs who had lived with them for more than five years.
Only Sweetie survived.
That makes the images of Shrestha holding her again even harder to forget.
Around them was the aftermath of a disaster that had taken homes, animals and human lives. Thousands of other families were still waiting for their own answers.
For one family, at least, five terrible days of uncertainty ended with a familiar little face still waiting for them.
Sweetie could not hear her family calling when they had to leave.
But somehow, she survived long enough for them to come back.
And this time, they left together.
