Lost Pups

[Jonathan_S]

Hoot a few days before he went missing

[WapitiTalk1]

Fine looking pup mister.  Any leads today?  RJ

[Jonathan_S]

Yesterday I spoke with somebody who had seen them but that was only day after they'd been on the loose.  They were still together at that time.  It's been 3 days since then.

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to have a missing child.  This is bad enough.

[Jonathan_S]

Hoot is lost, gone but not forgotten.  I miss you buddy.

If by chance he's still alive wandering, stolen or fostered, I hope he has a happy rest of his life.  Maybe we'll be blessed enough to see him again.

I will miss him horribly.  I got him as a tiny handful of a puppy and only had a few months with him.  Annie is depressed and she howls for him constantly.  I have hardly slept since Sunday and even then, I wake up thinking he's home.

This is the hardest thing I've gone through except for the deaths of family and friends.

[Knocker of rocks]

So very sorry

[Jonathan_S]

Thank you for your thoughts everyone.  KoR, thank you. 

If by some miracle, my little buddy Hoot comes home, I will let you know.

[Timberstalker]

Damn sorry Jonathan. 

[WapitiTalk1]

Call me the silly optimist Jonathan, but I have an odd feeling you'll see him again.  You've plastered your area with flyers and beagles are resilient little hounds.  I'm just hanging on to the thought that somebody, somewhere, has taken old Hoot in and he's eating like a fat rat, dining on food items that aren't necessarily good for a hunting dog.  I sincerely hope this turns out for the best and in the near future you'll be posting some great news here. 

[Jonathan_S]

In spite of my pessimism, I know there is hope.  I am going to make a bunch of 4'x8' plywood signs and request to post them in fields at all the choke points of major roads and highways in the area.

[Jason]

Call me the silly optimist Jonathan, but I have an odd feeling you'll see him again.  You've plastered your area with flyers and beagles are resilient little hounds.  I'm just hanging on to the thought that somebody, somewhere, has taken old Hoot in and he's eating like a fat rat, dining on food items that aren't necessarily good for a hunting dog.  I sincerely hope this turns out for the best and in the near future you'll be posting some great news here.

When my wife and I were in our early 20's we had a Blue Heeler pup, Danner was his name and he was about 6 months old, also at the time we had two children 5 and 2 years old. One Saturday afternoon we noticed Danner was not in the house, one of the kids must have let him out on accident, as soon as we noticed he was not around we searched high and low for him all weekend, unfortunately we had no luck in finding him, the kids were super bummed.
We plastered lost dog flyers with a picture of him all over east Vancouver and Camas. After a month goes by we had pretty much given up hope of finding him, we had no leads and not even one phone call of a possible sighting, and then one night the phone rings at dinner time, it's an elderly lady and she says "I think my grandson stole your dog", she tells us that she stopped by to visit him one day and noticed he had a dog, which he didn't have before, she started asking him questions and he said the dog was wondering in front of our neighborhood and abandoned and so he brought it home, well she didn't tell her grandson that she took our phone off of his dog tags that were still on his collar.
Early the next day my brother and I stopped by the kids apartment to get the pup, we should have just called the local LEO but we didn't, we knocked on his door and the kid answered, I asked him for my dog, and he says no that he doesn't have it, but you can hear the dog in the background going crazy after he heard my voice, so we gave him two options and luckily for him he picked option number one.
Even today I still remember the joy on my kids faces as we walked in the house with Danner, they were so excited to have him home, and just think we had almost given up all hope of ever finding him, so don't give up just yet.

[Jonathan_S]

Thanks for sharing that, I am glad you got the pup back.

People who steal dogs confuse me.  I will need to exercise serious restraint if I find myself in that situation.

[Jonathan_S]

Well it has been more than two months since I've seen my good friend Hoot.  We all sure miss him.  It's been a tough time, every now and then it really hits home.  Annie (female) is very reserved now and not as playful as she used to be.  She loves to hunt and train still but it's still hard to hear her on a track and not him too.

We have gotten many leads based on all the large signs in the area.  I've knocked on hundreds and hundreds of doors and spoken with probably 1,000+ people.  It's tough coming to terms when you go in and out of closure.  I know he was "just a dog" but he sure was a special part of our family.  He was young but the hundreds of hours of training and bonding makes it feel like he'd been around a lot longer.

We have another male, Waylon, an affable rascal.  He picked Annie's spirits up considerably.  She still breaks my heart, she'll sit at the far corner of the fence and howl mournfully the way a Husky will.  She'll curl up in the gravel waiting for Hoot to come home, it can be raining or snowing and she'll stay out until I kennel her late at night. 

[Jonathan_S]

Here is Waylon. The shoe eater.

[mburrows]

Cute little bugger, hopefully Annie will show him the ropes and they will make a dynamic duo for you. I try to tell myself mine are "just dogs" too but it never gets easier losing one regardless of the circumstance whether it's your first or tenth dog.

Keep the faith and still hoping everything works out for ya.

[Jonathan_S]

Thank you.  Yes she is a really good mentor to him even though she's only a young dog herself. 

I got a call on Hoot today - nice lady to try and help but the dog was like a boxer mix