Missing puppy returned to happy owner
Published: January 18, 2006
After a week’s absence, a missing puppy finally made it home, said its owner who was delighted with the help of local strangers.
Carrie Lovenburg picked up her stolen pit bull puppy late Sunday evening at a Good Samaritan’s house, she said. She was relieved after six days of wondering if Sammy had vanished forever. The local nursing assistant insisted someone unknown snatched the orphaned dog, which she had adopted, from her back yard west of Sterling High a week ago.
She supposed it was set free by a dognapper, shortly after news of its disappearance spread. Sammy’s six-day-long misadventure, though, will likely remain a mystery, seen only from a dog’s-eye view of Sterling streets.
Its owner, nonetheless, is consoled by Sammy’s return.
“I was so worried. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for fear I might never see it again,” said Lovenburg, recounting that a dozen people phoned her with advice and possible sightings.
The crucial call came late Sunday night from a family of pit bull fanciers.
“I found your puppy,” Bernadine Gandee informed her.
Lovenburg said Gandee described Sammy’s brown tiger-like stripes, long tail and floppy ears, and that it matched her pet. Gandee said the puppy tagged along with her son, Jacob, late Sunday night.
The parent said her 15-year-old boy had been out walking their female pit bull near South Sixth Avenue, around 10 p.m., and suddenly Sammy appeared.
The Gandees, reacting to a recent press account of Lovenburg’s hunt for Sammy, phoned the owner, both women said. Lovenburg said she rushed to Gandee’s home on the south side of town.
Sammy charged in from Gandee’s kitchen when she opened their front door.
“I hugged her and kissed her,” Lovenburg reflected with joy, during an interview at her house Monday. “The lady said, ‘Yeah she’s OK. She’s just hungry and thirsty. We’re feeding her.’”
“She wasn’t starving. But someone had to take care of her, because she wasn’t thin. If she had walked the town for four days, she’d be skin and bones and sicker than a dog,” she said, hinting at an alternate explanation for her whereabouts.
Still, she had insisted that a thief plucked Sammy from its 5-foot fenced yard.
“I figure somebody dumped her” after the theft, Lovenburg remarked.
“It’s a popular dog,” Gandee said. “I believe a lot people use them for fighting dogs. I hear that’s what people want them for.”
Lovenburg said several callers asserted that Sterling’s dog-theft problem is understated. She said one came from an Akron-based dog rescue group that inquired about adopting unwanted pets.
The following morning, she said she shopped for new toys and a new blue dog collar bearing Sammy’s name and phone number.
Sammy settled into a living room couch, gnawing contentedly on a fresh chunk of rawhide. Her black Labrador playmate, Hugo, snoozed on the floor at Lovenburg’s feet.
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