A four-year-old pug named Tenzi has become a social media star after getting lost in Salt Lake and returning to a frenzy of tears, hugs and kisses more than 24 hours later, thanks to a kindly electrician who had found him wandering in a lane and kept him safe till he saw a poster with the pet’s picture.

Tenzi’s family had got posters printed and pasted around 150 of them in the Salt Lake neighbourhood where the electrician has a shop. “Missing,” screamed the poster in red. “Last seen on the 20th Jan 2019 @ Salt Lake GD 80,” it said below a picture of Tenzi appropriately looking lost.

The pug had been last seen around 4pm on the terrace of GD 80 on Sunday. It was about an hour later that the family realised he was not in the house.

“We had some friends from Japan visiting us and were doing some cooking on the terrace. He was with us then. Around 4pm, we came down to our rooms to rest and after a while we noticed that he was not at home,” said Doma Wang, owner of the popular Blue Poppy restaurant.

Doma and her daughters immediately set out to look for Tenzi. “The people in the local bazaar know me; so they also started searching for him. We were out till 11pm but there was no trace of Tenzi,” she recounted.

A Facebook post with Tenzi’s picture and a fervent appeal — “Please help us find our baby. Please.” — went viral with 500-plus shares and comments. A deluge of calls, many of them from strangers, comforted the family. “I was touched by the love and affection of people,” Doma said.

The one thing she and her daughters were stressed about was the possibility of other dogs “hauling up Tenzi”.

The search continued on Monday but it was only at 7pm that good news arrived. “A man said that he had seen a pug and taken him to his Rajarhat home…. When he came to our house (by following the address mentioned on the poster), our domestic help identified him as the electrician working in the next block,” Doma said.

Doma’s daughters reached Rajarhat soon after to pick up their “baby”. A second Facebook post on Monday night announced: “Tenzi is Back.”

Pug owners say the breed, which many identify with a famous Vodafone ad, makes for the ideal housedog. Pugs are an even-tempered breed, exhibiting stability, playfulness and have an outgoing, loving disposition. They love to stick to their owners and do best in homes where they receive plenty of attention.