George, a shih tzu

So, if you didn't know it already, take a lesson from this story -- even if a dog is obviously old, not a vibrant puppy, there are people out there that will commit crimes of opportunity like this one. And from that crime of opportunity in Boca Raton, the dog wound up in a shelter over 40 miles away in Miami-Dade County.


Missing dog found in Miami shelter
Reported by: Vince Norman
Last Update: 9/29 11:47 am

BOCA RATON, FL -- The case of the dog-napped Shih Tzu has a happy ending.

George, a 20 year old blind and partially deaf Shih Tzu, was stolen from his owner Sandy Lee's car, as she was dropping off her dry cleaning last week.

"I was literally gone for four minutes. Came back, my purse was gone, and George was gone," said Sandy.

Sandy was heartbroken. "You could take one look at George and see he's not a beautiful little puppy. He's a 20 year old blind disabled animal. I figured, ok take my purse, but why take my dog?"

George was found thanks to the aid of Anita Solomon, a part-time pet detective.

"I do independent rescue and going back to Katrina, I've been doing pet reunification," said Solomon.

This erstwhile Ace Ventura managed to locate George's picture online, and tracked him down to the Miami-Dade Animal Shelter.

"Before I called Sandy, I called them and I asked for certain things that I knew would definitely identify this dog," said Solomon.

"I just went, George, and immediately, he can't see, he knew it was me right away. And just circled around in the cage like get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here," said Lee.

With George safe at home, Sandy's life is once again on track. "I never thought I would be holding him like this, never; I'm traumatized, but it's like for him it never happened," said Lee.

Source: http://www.wptv.com/content/news/southpbc/bocaraton/story/dog-stolen-kidnapped-wptv/XHxf1t5guUK8dKm3R5PJ5g.cspx

Tulip

Here's a reminder that in some cases, there is no replacing the physical search. This dog was stuck, otherwise, she may have come home. However, it's also critical that these people told neighbors that their dog was lost, because it was neighbors that alerted them to barking that they heard off in the distance.


. . . the time that I lost Tulip. It was only for nine hours, and it was one of the worst days of my life. She was old by then, with a severely weakened hindquarters, and I knew she’d never go running in the deep snow voluntarily.

After hours of searching the woods in a snow storm, calling and stopping at neighbors, we found her late at night, having slid partway down a small cliff, wedging herself between the ground and a large branch. We would never have found her if it hadn’t been for dear, wonderful neighbors, who thought they heard her barking and led us to where they thought she might be. We trudged through deep snow in the pitch dark, ears straining to hear something that might lead us to her. All 4 of us stopped cold when we heard a deep bark floating from the woods.

“There she is!” someone said, and I began to cry. Not from happiness, because it wasn’t her. I knew her bark, and it wasn’t her. It was 10 pm and my frail, old dog was somewhere in the dark and the snow and the storm and the bitter cold and it wasn’t her. And then, moments later . . . I could cry remembering it, we heard a second bark.

“TULIP!!! That’s her, I KNOW it is!”

We scrambled into the pitch dark woods, still unsure of where she was, and how to find her. Brambles tore at our clothes and the snow fell from branches overhead and melted down our necks, but we had heard her, and nothing was going to stop us from looking more.

It was Jim who found her. His flashlight found two glowing eyes… maybe a raccoon, maybe a possum, but no, wait… it was big and got whiter as we approached, and there she was, stuck like a puppy put into a Christmas stocking, held fast by a fallen tree to the side of a steep creek bed.

It took almost an hour to extract her off the steep, slippery slope, and get her back to the farm. She had most likely been pinned, immobile in the bitter cold, for almost nine hours, and she couldn’t move her back legs. She couldn’t walk unaided for a week, but she slowly gained her strength, and graced the farm for another year.

I will never forget the nightmare of that nine hours.

Source: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/lost-dogs

Max, a dachshund

Missing California dog found in Phoenix
Ashley Shaw - The Arizona Republic
Aug. 31, 2009 03:53 PM

A Dachshund who had been missing for four months was reunited with his family Monday in Phoenix after being found 588 miles from his home in Kingsburg, Calif.

Max began to bark and wag his tail as he was led out of the Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Center by a handler.

"He's happy. He knows me," said owner Pamela Ekizian, 50.

Max was a gift from Ekizian's children after she and her husband lost a Labrador retriever they had owned for almost 14 years.

In the 3½ months they had Max, who was adopted from a shelter, he escaped from the house several times. California shelters automatically place microchips in all of the animals they rescue, so they had always received calls and were able to locate Max whenever he got loose, she said.

"We never would have found Max, even the first time, if he hadn't been microchipped," Ekizian said.

Four months ago, Max climbed up on their couch, managed to open the window and chew through the screen to escape.

"I knew someone must have had him or picked him up," Ekizian said. But she said she never imagined that the call would come four months later and the dog would have traveled nearly 600 miles.

Their 4-year-old granddaughter, who took the disappearance the hardest, often asked if they had heard anything.

"She just asked me about him the other day," Ekizian said as she began to tear up. "I just kept telling her that maybe one day we will get another call about him."

Max was finally found Thursday at 35th Avenue near Interstate 10. Ekizian said the county shelter gave her the option to pick up the dog or put him up for adoption.

"My husband asked me, 'Are you ready to do something crazy?' . . . Everyone was telling us we were nuts for driving so far. But the minute my husband said they called we got work covered and headed out here," Ekizian said.

Ekizian and her husband will bring Max home as a surprise for their granddaughter, who does not yet know that he has been rescued.

Aprille Hollis, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Center, said that although they have found dogs from California and Texas, Max "definitely wins the award for the furthest travelled."

But it remained unclear how the dog traveled so far.

Hollis said that someone probably picked up Max in California and brought him to Phoenix, where he got loose again. The dog's hair had been groomed and clipped and he was found in good health with no signs of neglect.

The microchip that helped the shelter locate Max's owners costs $25 to insert with no monthly fee and information can be easily updated online, Hollis said.

"Unfortunately a very small percentage of animals have them, otherwise we would have more stories like these," she said.

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/08/31/20090831abrk-lostdog.html

Mindy, a maltipoo

Dog reunited with owners after three months
Friday, November 20, 2009

AKRON, Ohio (KABC) -- An Ohio family thought they had lost their beloved Maltipoo on vacation nearly three months ago only to find out the family pet had survived in the wilderness.

See the video for this story here

A trip to Maine turned into the adventure of a lifetime for Mindy the Maltipoo. It began with a stop in a wilderness area of northwest Massachusetts.

"I thought my wife threw the dog in the car and she thought I put her in and we got about 30 miles down the road and made another stop and discovered she wasn't in," explained the dog's owner, John Dunbar.

They went back for Mindy but couldn't find her. But her family didn't give up. When they got home to Akron, they put Mindy's picture on a Web site, AmberPetAlert.com. That was three months ago. Her profile was a week away from being removed when the call came -- Mindy was alive and well.

"At first I'm like this has to be a joke," said Kathy Dunbar. "My dog's dead. She's been gone three months."

When Mindy got home she weighed three pounds.

"They said she had a diet of mainly grasses and roots and bugs or whatever she could scavenge, and she's a foo-foo dog," said John. "The Humane Society said it was so unusual for a little dog to be able to survive for three months. But somehow she did it."

"I can't believe it," said Kathy. "I cried because I was sad, now I cry because I'm happy."

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7129899
Printer-friendly version here

Also see these reviews of the AmberPetAlert service, here