Yo-Yo Ma Helps Orchestrate Successful Search For Conductor's Lost Dog

LENOX (CBS) – This weekend an audience at Tanglewood took in more than cello music from renowned musician Yo-Yo Ma - they also heard a plea that would ultimately help bring a lost dog home.

Conductor David Zinman's 4-month-old Cuban Havanese puppy Carlito went missing on Sunday morning. Ma, who considers Zinman one of his good friends and mentors, made an appeal to the nearly 14,000 concertgoers to help find the dog.

"I never do this," Ma said, before explaining how Carlito ran away from home when a smoke alarm went off during breakfast. "Whoever is in Lenox, Stockbridge, in this area, could you help out? I'm really serious."

The cellist even gave out the phone numbers for the local police.

"You've got to find him," he said.

The message worked. At about 7 p.m. that night, a young couple driving down Cliffwood Avenue spotted a puppy in the middle of the road. They had heard about Ma's plea from a concertgoer as well as family and friends, and used dog treats to scoop him up.

"We knew right away, who else could this be?" Lenox 19-year-old Grace Ellrodt, who spotted the dog, said. "We felt really lucky to be in the right place at the right time."

Zinman has known Ma since he was a teenager, and couldn't be more grateful for his help.

"I often say to him that you are our guardian angel, and he's always been that for me," Zinman said.