Buster, hero dog

Missing Dog Found Thanks to Craigslist Ad
Reported by: Eddie Flores
4/01/2010 11:49 am

WESLACO - On January 22, Leon Escalon was held up at gunpoint at a convenience store in Weslaco. His dog, Buster, jumped in and took a bullet for Escalon and then ran away scared.

The family says they gave up hope of finding Buster, since he had been missing for three months. But Escalon's aunt thought differently and never gave up hope.

"I knew it all along. I told Leon we can't give up. The Lord is good. We've got to find him," she tells us.

Since Buster's disappearance, Trisha Cisneros has been putting Buster's picture on Craigslist. Today, she got a hit from an anonymous caller. The caller told her where he lived and he found a dog that looked like Buster.

Buster was miles away from where he disappeared, in Colonia next to the Donna landfill.

"He recognized me right away. I unhooked him and he bolted straight into the truck. I had the door open and he jumped straight into the truck and sat right there where he originally was, like nothing ever happened at all," Escalon said.

The people who had Buster chained up said they had no idea who he belonged to, but they were happy to see him back with his rightful owner.

There's no question as to whether it's Buster or not. He has the bullet wound to prove it.

Now Buster can live out his life with the family who's given him unconditional love.

The family will now take Buster to the vet to take a look at his wound. There is no exit wound, so they think the bullet may be lodged inside his body.

Source: http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Missing-Dog-Found-Thanks-to-Craigslist-Ad/Y-RRoHj83EabIwvCL1VJgA.cspx

Garfield & Cleo, doberman pinschers

Virtual Lost Pet Tracking Helps Garfield & Cleo Find Their Way Home
April 2nd, 2010

Nadene had spent the last two months working with others to try to help find a lost little dog, and that search had never gone well. She wanted to give up, but giving up was as hard as going on. So when she found herself with a few minutes and a Washington Post newspaper, she turned to the classifieds. You never know when someone might decide to run a classified ad to say they'd found a dog that might be someone's lost dog.

Well, there wasn't anything like that, but there was an ad that jumped out at her. It's hard to miss an ad for TWO dogs lost together, especially when both of them have the presence of doberman pinschers.

Here's the web version of the ad that Nadene saw:

By now, Nadene had memorized all the dogs at the Fairfax County shelter, having looked at their postings on the website so many times in the last eight weeks. She knew she'd seen a pair of dobermans listed as being at the Faifax Shelter on Pet Harbor. Here are the postings Nadene had seen so many times:

It didn't matter that Marshall VA is around 25 miles down the road; how could there be 2 dobes missing and 2 stray dobes within 25 miles of each other that aren't the same pair of dogs? Both black & tan, and both consisting of a male and a female? Not a chance this could be coincidence.

She called the number and spoke to the woman, Lisa, who told her that with their children grown, the dogs now ARE their children. Within minutes, Lisa looked on the website and saw her family's prescious family members right there, at the Fairfax shelter where they had been since five days after they went missing from Marshall - a little more than two weeks now. Shocked, she said she would never have thought to check with the Fairfax County shelter because of how far away it is from where they went missing.

So let this be a lesson to us all -- several lessons. Virtual pet tracking can help lost dogs get reunited with their humans; it usually takes patience (and nicely for Nadene, it can also happen unexpectedly) but it can pay off big time. Another lesson: a lost dog is not necessarily going to be found within a 25 mile radius of the escape point. And a lesson that I for one need to heed, which is that people do still place little classified ads in newspapers. I thought it was a practice that had all but died.

Leah, service dog

Family Dismayed At Treatment After Returning Lost Dog
June 25, 2008

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. -- An autistic teenager has been reunited with his lost service dog after the dog went missing for more than 48 hours.

Newschannel 32 has learned that the dog wound up in the arms of another family.

The 16-year-old teenager went inside a Wal-Mart with his mother Saturday night, leaving the dog, Leah, inside their van.

A few minutes later, the dog jumped out of the van and into the store, family members said.

Janice Mclain said that her teenage daughter found the dog and noticed that something was wrong.

“I said, ‘you bring her on home and we'll take care of her and put an ad in the paper,'” Mclain said.

The newspaper ad for a "found" Australian cattle dog caught the eye of family friends who saw the story on Newschannel 32.

Mclain said that when the family arrived, her daughter didn’t get the response they expected.

“We were treated like criminals,” Mclain said. “She started hollering at us, ‘you need to leave what's not yours alone,’ and I said, ‘look, we did you a favor.'”

Mclain said her family is distraught by their treatment because they only tried to do right by the animal.

The autistic teenager’s family has admitted that their reaction was harsh, but that it was due to the stress from losing the dog.

The boy had trouble functioning without his service dog.

The teenager’s mother said that she plans to write a letter expressing her gratitude to the family that found their service dog.

Source: http://www.wlky.com/family/16702260/detail.html

Bobby, yorkie

Stolen dog back home in Ypsilanti Township
By Judy McGovern, the Ann Arbor News
October 03, 2007, 6:09PM

Bobby is back.
The 17-year-old Yorkshire terrier, snatched from owner Bill Hardy's yard in Ypsilanti Township Saturday, was rescued by two women who took the dog to an Ypsilanti veterinarian's office Wednesday morning.

"He knew me when I picked him up," Hardy said. "He gave me a kiss."

Marian and William Hardy of Ypsilanti Township were reunited with Bobby, their 17-year-old Yorkshire terrier.

The 6-pound dog, which has one rear leg that drags and is missing teeth, didn't have any obvious injuries from his ordeal, Hardy said. But Hardy said he planned to take Bobby to the veterinarian for a check-up.

"He seems to be a little bit shook up," Hardy said.

The two women who rescued Bobby saw him being tossed back and forth between two young people who were walking on the street, Hardy said. But Hardy said he had not yet talked to the women and didn't know where they found his dog.

Hardy said he was told the women ordered the young people to give them the dog or they would call police. They took Bobby to the veterinarian's office, where someone called Hardy.

Bobby went missing Saturday during a garage sale at Hardy's home on McCarthy Street. He said he believes three teenage boys were involved, and one of the boys distracted Hardy by asking about a lamp while the other two took the dog.

Based on a statement from one of the boys, they may have believed the dog was valuable, Hardy said.

Hardy said he would like to pursue criminal prosecution if he can find out who took his dog. But for now, he's just glad to have Bobby back.

"He's my best friend," Hardy said.

Source: http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/10/stolen_dog_back_home.html
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Also see initial story here: http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2007/10/owner_of_stolen_yorkie_worries.html