The Hoffmeister family of North Delridge is searching for Pogo, their Papillon, so relentlessly and creatively, they’ve already traced her trail … to a new dead end.
Of all the pets we’ve posted to the Lost/Found section of the WSB Pets page, Pogo’s odyssey is the most agonizing one since the theft and recovery of Butch the Shiba Inu three weeks ago (original WSB report here; followup here).
And according to what Betsy Hoffmeister and family have discovered since Pogo disappeared Friday night, Pogo and Butch seem to have something in common …
… they both apparently vanished in High Point.
In Butch’s case, he was taken from outside the High Point Library, where his owners had left him tied up while they went inside.
In Pogo’s case, High Point is quite a haul uphill and westward from the little dog (7 pounds)’s North Delridge home. The Hoffmeisters know she made it there somehow because they hired a professional tracker, based in Southwestern Washington, to come up and follow Pogo’s track from their home. On Sunday, that team followed Pogo’s scene all the way to the High Point Library, where it came to a stop.
Betsy had to wait till today to talk to people at the library, to make sure Pogo hadn’t somehow gotten inside, and she talked to many more people to see if anyone had seen the family’s beloved dog.
Late Monday night, she e-mailed an update telling the story of what their sleuthing efforts have yielded so far:
Two young kids picked up Pogo on Friday afternoon (unclear where, at the library perhaps)? They took her to a security guard who drove them to the office of the High Point Development – where the tracker tracked her through. The office declined responsibility and directed these two young, possibly immigrant teenagers to contact a shelter. The kids took the dog to a neighbor who is the “dog walk captain” of the neighborhood. I had contacted the block watch captain who forwarded my e-mail to the dog walk captain, who called me. The dog walk captain showed me the block where the kids live.
The same security guard happened to be driving by as I was walking through, and I flagged her down. She pointed me to the house where the family lives. No one was home. The family had left town for California. Rather than taking her to a shelter, they entrusted her to another neighbor, this one a Vietnamese immigrant family. The woman accepted care of her, but rather than calling the shelter, she kept her. This is now Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, the woman’s mother came to the house and opened the front door. Pogo escaped.
The deep irony is, this was four houses away from the home of our best friends … Literally within 400 feet of a home where she has been many times. I walked around and talked to the people I saw but no one had any information from there.
In addition to the exhaustive in-person investigating, Betsy and family also have put up flyers and posted the notice online. Back to the case of Butch the Shiba Inu – what haunts Betsy is that the people who originally took Butch apparently had done so with the thought of using him as bait for dogfights, so they are hoping against hope that Pogo is not in the hands of anyone with similar intentions.
If you have seen her or think you have seen her, 206 353 9331 or 206 353 9334, any time, day or night.
And if you have a lost or found pet to report, please e-mail information (and a photo available) to WSB for posting on the Pets page – editor@westseattleblog.com – and if you don’t hear from us promptly, you can also directly access the WSB Forums around the clock.
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