This is a story with a happy ending. Its nice to see there are people out there who will go out of their way to help a stranger find her dog. The desperate tone of the letter to the editor haunted reporter Jill Jones.
“My little brown-and-white beagle/terrier mix dog was my only reason to live,” 80-year-old Lillian Brown wrote. “Please bring my little buddy back to me.”
The letter in the April 16 issue of the Apache Junction (Ariz.) News sent Jones on a search that would lead to Fort Wayne.
But to understand this story, you have to know a little about Bobby.
Bobby, the 2-year-old dog with the big brown eyes, grabbed Lillian Brown’s heart the first time she saw him at a local animal shelter last fall. Brown’s husband of 48 years had recently passed away, followed by her 16-year-old dog a couple of months later.
She went to the shelter for company, and she found it in Bobby.
“He more or less picked me out,” Brown said by phone Tuesday. “He climbed the doggone cage, wagging his tail and crying.”
Brown, a Detroit native who moved to Arizona in the late 1980s, lives in a tiny mobile home in Apache Junction, a town of about 42,000 outside of Phoenix that nearly doubles its population during the winter months.
Brown often let Bobby stay with neighbors who lived in her trailer court in the winter. That’s what she did on April 3.
But this time, Bobby wasn’t there when she got home. Her neighbors insisted they had put him back in her trailer, but the dog had disappeared. Brown was frantic. She put ads in all the local papers and hung fliers at area businesses.
All the while, she remained suspicious of her neighbors, who had asked whether they could have Bobby and offered to buy him, Brown said.
She made a deal with God, promising to go to Mass every day for a year regardless of whether Bobby came home. She pledged to quit smoking the day he was back in her arms.
For days, she slept on her front porch waiting for Bobby, and she grew weak because she couldn’t make herself eat or drink.
“After the first month, I said, ‘I’m never going to see my Bobby again,” Brown said.
Jones, a self-described animal lover, became involved after seeing Brown’s letter sent to the newspaper.
She did a story on the missing dog but didn’t stop reporting after the paper hit the newsstands.
Intrigued by Brown’s conviction that her neighbors had taken the dog with them, Jones tracked them to Fort Wayne. Using records from the Allen County Assessor’s Office, she sent letters to the couple’s neighbors, asking them to contact her if they saw a dog matching Bobby’s description in the backyard.
Saturday, one did, saying the couple still called the dog “Bobby” and told people he was a stray they got in Arizona, Jones said. The couple, Keith and Cheryl Angerbright, are charged with misdemeanor theft in Arizona, said Commander Jay Swart of the Apache Junction Police Department.
No phone listing could be found for the couple in Fort Wayne.
Fort Wayne police obtained a confession, and Bobby – in good health – was taken to Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control early Monday, where he promptly charmed everyone on staff, said Peggy Bender, humane education specialist.
The agency gave Bobby a microchip for permanent identification, and Continental Airlines is taking Bobby to Arizona free of charge, Bender said. His flight is scheduled to leave this afternoon.
Jones is thrilled she was able to help and credits police agencies in both states for their quick action, she said.
As for Brown, Monday was the first night she has been able to sleep without taking a sleeping pill since Bobby’s disappearance, she said.
She remains awed by Jones’ generosity in tracking down Bobby.
“You better believe I’ll never forget her.”
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/17329073.htm