What do you do when you see a lost dog wandering around? To be more specific, a lost husky who manages to stroll onto school grounds and capture the hearts of all the students? This is a weird situation that probably never happens but in this case, one big and cute fluffy husky managed to pull this off at Mt. SAC Early College Academy (MECA).
On February 28, 2025, an adorable husky named Tashi escaped its owners and got lost in the streets. Tashi wandered around until he got attracted by the loud noise coming from nearby; then, he stumbled onto Mt. SAC Early College Academy (MECA) school grounds, which caught the attention of many students and staff alike. This was the day Joshua De Real, the custodian, got a chance to come in contact with the dog.
“From what I saw, Tashi was very kind and nice towards everyone,” says De Real. “Tashi was very open and kind, being cheerful and all. This breed is very nice toward people and is always looking for fun.”
With all the attractions, many people wanted to look at the fluffy doggy, and soon, they surrounded the fence blocking them from Tashi. But because of safety restrictions, the students weren’t allowed to go out and play with him.
Katarina Garcia, the assistant principal at MECA, shares, “There aren’t any [precautions]. It’s just an act of goodwill…I just told Josh I should put him in there because we can keep him close. After all, we don’t want something to happen to our students.”
Of course, the student’s safety comes first, even if the dog wouldn’t hurt a fly. But because a dog was on campus, the teachers and staff had to take care of it for a while. Alex Palacios, a Security Guard at MECA, has much experience with lost animals.
“I own two huskies…my dogs are a lot of work to keep clean, you know. They are constantly shedding and have lots of energy, so it’s always time-consuming and tiring to keep up with them… These types of dogs always escape, but when they run out of energy, they come back,” says Alex. “When I got to the dog, he had lots of energy, very excited. But compared to my dogs, he was pretty calm.”
Soon after the dog got onto campus, teachers and staff searched for its owners and found them. Land of Compassion Buddha, a Buddhist temple one block from the school, claimed to be the dog’s owner. After some investigation, the teachers discovered that Tashi belonged to the Buddhist Temple, which was just a few blocks away. The school contacted Tenzin Chophel Rinpoche, the owner of Tashi and a Mt. San Antonio College graduate, who took Tashi back to the temple.
(Image by William Liu)
Tenzin says it was common for Huskies to try and escape, but Tashi is a good dog. “A lot of huskies, you know, run away, but especially he’s [a] very good huskies. Other huskies what do is they [would] dig under the fence, and then they just run away from the owner”.
Tenzin also says “He doesn’t do like that but when we open the gate, he’s run away sometimes… we have lots of visitors here and when they come in they forget to close the door and he gets the chance to run away he does, but…he comes back. Sometimes we chase him and sometimes we don’t…he comes back to the temple because… we feed him very delicious food…chicken.”
Later, we contacted Tenzin again and learned about Tashi’s life. “ I got Tashi from the shelter,” says Tenzin. “Tashi is a Tibetan name…Tashi means auspicious. He was in the shelter, and one of our members found him. I told my member I wanted one dog. So she was checking around and finally found him in the shelter somewhere…He makes the temple environment more fun, and the monks love him…Even in our temple…we have lots of kids. We have kids’ programs. All those kids like to play with him. Everybody loves him. He’s a little bit spoiled”.
Overall, this event was a delightful surprise to the students and staff at MECA. With Tashi always wanting to wander around, we look forward to meeting him and the monks again. Whether it be in a week or another three years, we will always welcome Tashi and others to another visit to the school.
