Pets left behind find 'happy ending'

KELLOGG — Dogs Sunny, the yellow Labrador, and Dino, the German shepherd weren’t scheduled for a long stay at Muttley Makeovers by Miss Mae. Instead, their stay at the Kellogg dog groomer and boarding venue turned into weeks when their owner never returned for them. The dog groomer said the owner went so far as to fake her own death to avoid taking responsibility for the pets.

Business owner Emily Mae said the doggie roommates were dropped off as an emergency boarding situation. The owner reportedly claimed a family medical emergency required a visit out of state to see a relative who had fallen ill. The dogs would need to be picked up by Dec. 20, however, to not interfere with Christmas boarding reservations for other dogs.

That pickup never took place, and as the staff kept trying to contact the owner, they ran into a brick wall.

“We keep calling and calling, I start trying to message the emergency contact on Facebook,” Mae said.

The business owner said she tried to go through all the proper steps to have the dogs' owner surrender the animals to her.

"Or just figure out ways that I wouldn’t be in trouble rehoming them if it came to that,” Mae said.

Mae said at different times, when contacting the owner using the phone and Facebook, her staff were told the owner was on a ventilator and then, that she had died, but Mae didn't believe it. 

That’s when Mae decided to try and figure out what the best thing was to do for the good of the dogs.

Kellogg Police were contacted as well as Shoshone Pet Rescue to ascertain the best path forward for the pets.

Following up when there was some response from the emergency contact led to more promises with no conclusion in sight.

“I gave them a few opportunities to come pick up the dogs, but they would say they were going to and then they wouldn’t show up, and after a week of that, I said ‘OK, I’m going to rehome them then. I’m going to need you to come down and sign something,’ but they never did,” Mae said.

At this point, and with some guidance from law enforcement, the business Facebook page reached out to the community for help.

“All we cared about is the dogs being in a good home,” Mae said. "We had quite a bit of people interested in fostering them and doing some trials, and we had a gentleman who contacted us who wanted to try both of them.”

Kellogg Police Chief Paul Twidt called the situation “just unfortunate.”

“It doesn’t fit abandonment because she did leave them with somebody. That aspect took it to more of a civil case than a criminal one,” Twidt said.

After consulting more in depth with the Shoshone County Prosecutor’s Office, Twidt said they agreed that unfortunately, the matter was a civil case.

As the president of Shoshone Pet Rescue, Marcia Biotti said she wished the owner would have simply surrendered the dogs directly to a pet nonprofit equipped to take them rather than put everyone through an intense journey to find out the owner had left the dogs behind and contrived a scenario obscuring the truth from everyone involved. 

“If someone asks for help, we will offer it,” Biotti said.

Pet rescue agencies talk to one another to try and have a no-adopt policy if repeat pet owners have a history of adopting animals that they aren’t able to care for in the long run, but unfortunately, there are lengths that people can go to to circumvent the safety nets in place.

Biotti said it would be helpful if there was some sort of central database to better enforce pet placements, but in the meantime, agencies rely on past experience and word-of-mouth to try and prevent adoptions that could result in pet abandonment or abuse or neglect.

“People lie their way out of most of these situations unless someone actually witnesses abuse or neglect and is willing to testify to it,” Biotti said.

In the meantime, Muttley Makeovers by Miss Mae had a happy announcement Thursday on the status of the dogs.

Sunny and Dino had been staying with David Lautzenheiser for a trial foster period to see if it would work out, and just this week, he announced that he’d be happy to take them on permanently. Dino has had a bit of a name change and is now going by Odin, named for the Viking god himself.

“We got a message that he was bonding with them and he would like to keep both of them. We’ve heard nothing but good things from vet clinics about him and how he takes care of his dogs, so it truly was a happy ending,” Emily Mae said.

As they’ve been developing a relationship and new routines, the dogs are settling into their new home.

“They’re both pretty sweet dogs. Sunny, the lab, went and just put her head on my chest just from the get-go,” Lautzenheiser said.

Building up trust with Odin has taken more time, but the dog now uses Lautzenheiser’s bed as his safe place.

Having lost his lab in October, Lautzenheiser had been holding off from getting a new dog and figured that somewhere along the way, the right one would show up.

“I’m very grateful to have them. They’re a couple of sweet lovies,” Lautzenheiser said.

    Dogs Sunny and Odin curl up together.
  

    Dino the German Shepherd has been renamed Odin.
  

    Sunny is a yellow Labrador who was boarded along with Dino the dog at Muttley Makeovers by Miss Mae.