It’s unusual for farm animals to just disappear. But that’s what happened to a carabao in Dinagat Islands in Mindanao last 13 January.

The owner went looking for the beast of burden, but he could not find it so he gave up the search. He was resigned to the possibility that the carabao had been stolen. Who wouldn’t be when two weeks had passed and he hadn’t gotten any news about the animal?

This week, though, children looking for firewood stumbled on the carabao stuck in a narrow ditch. Why it didn’t make a sound to alert someone nearby was puzzling. Nonetheless, the children reported the location of the missing carabao and people came to help extricate it from the pit.

The rescuers got the animal out by widening the ditch. The owner was fortunate and happy to get back his carabao, though he was shocked to see it emaciated for failing to eat and drink for two weeks.

For the freed carabao, it can now forget the thought that his owner ditched him.