Family seeking missing Cairn terrier
Karen Stevenson had tears in her eyes when she described 16-month-old Chloe, who went missing seven weeks ago.
“We call her Sassy Sally. She’s got attitude. She always has to be the first one out the door when we go on walks and she’s still at that play age; she’s a chewer.”
On the day after Thanksgiving, Chloe wasn’t wearing her tags because she could not refrain from chewing on them. The gates were left open for a delivery truck and Chloe, along with 6-year-old Teddy, took off for a holiday adventure while 8-year-old Peppie stayed home to relax.
Chloe, Teddy and Peppie are all cairn terriers, named after the cairns or stacks of rocks that farmers used to mark their fields. The terriers were used to dig into the cairns and kill the varmints who resided within and came out to feed on the crops.
Hunters and diggers, Peppie, Teddy and Chloe have 10 acres to explore. Karen and John Stevenson have owned the breed for 20 years and knew to build the walls and fences deep.
Their dogs are loved; they have seatbelts for when they travel in the car, they are walked and taken to state parks, and the Stevenson’s Ponderosa home is outfitted with everything a dog could want. They are family, after all.
What would anyone do when a family member goes missing? Teddy was found but Chloe’s whereabouts are still a mystery. “We’ve spent over $3,000 trying to find her,” Karen Stevenson said. On Dec. 22, they brought in Harry Oakes and his two dogs, Valorie and Willow, from the International K-9 Search and Rescue Services. They have also been in touch with a pet psychic, have printed glossy posters to put in the neighborhood, and put out pleas in newspapers and the internet.
The information that the Stevensons compiled has led them to believe that Chloe was picked up by someone. “Harry and his two border collies tracked Chloe’s scent from our house to Holman Road just down from the Iller Creek conservation trail. Her live scent stopped there, indicating that someone picked her up,” said Karen Stevenson.
They have gotten calls from people who have found the breed, but none were Chloe. On New Year’s Day, someone found a Yorkie covered in ice on their front porch and they called the Stevensons who picked up the dog and called SCRAPS who found its owner. “What people don’t know is that animal shelters do what they can to find a pet’s owner or a home for a pet rather than euthanize them. Chloe is microchipped and a shelter or a vet could help bring her home. If you find a dog, don’t keep it or just let it go, bring it somewhere that will help it. We miss her so much. It’s heartbreaking,” Stevenson said.
The Stevensons are offering a large reward for the safe return of Chloe, worth more than the monetary value of the breed but not even close to her true value. With tears in her eyes, Karen Stevenson said, “If we had a million dollars, we’d spend a million dollars to find her.”