Missing Chapters

Maryellen Gollnick called me last week with a question: Would I write a story about a missing dog?

 Initially, I cringed when she asked, but I listened to her story anyway.  

Gollnick’s 10-year-old daughter, Hannah, used money she was given when she received her first Holy Communion in the second grade to purchase a schnauzer in December. Jazzie is now 9-months-old and has been missing from their Elk Street home since April 29.

 Jazzie, and the family’s yellow Labrador retriever, Murphy, got out of the yard on a Tuesday afternoon. Murphy was found at 6 a.m. April 30. Someone found the dog and called the Alamance County Animal Shelter. Gollnick had alerted the folks at the shelter that the two dogs were missing so they contacted her when Murphy was located.

Jazzie wasn’t with Murphy. Hannah was heartbroken but determined to find her furry friend. The duo went through puppy school at PetSmart. They slept together every night. Hannah made signs and hung them up around the neighborhood. Gollnick got on the phone and called the animal shelter, local veterinarians and, of course, me.

When I worked at The Daily News in Jacksonville, I sort of earned the unofficial title of “dog reporter.” I did my fair share of dog stories but “animal reporter” would have been more accurate.

My first assignment at The Daily News was about a woman named Easter who raised rabbits. I was off and running. Then there was Mimi, the dog that got turned into the Onslow County Animal Shelter but was never adopted and eventually euthanized. I watched and wrote about it all.

There was the Chihuahua that was thrown against a wall and tossed in the woods. The pit bull doused in gasoline and then lit on fire. There were horses that were starved, horses that were shot and one horse – please brace yourselves because it’s terrible – who was raped with a baseball bat at the stables aboard Camp Lejeune, a nearby Marine Corps base.

I watched a whale necropsy and a send off for a pelican named Stinky. I wrote about the ducks that invaded downtown Swansboro several times and lots and lots of alligators. One guy thought the alligator in his pool was a blow-up toy. Boy was he wrong.

One of my favorites was a funeral held at a pond in the back of an apartment complex for Charlie the alligator, who feasted on the roasts and chickens the residents fed him. Wildlife officials killed Charlie because the alligator became a threat.

I’ve only been at the Times-News since August. I wrote my first animal story in October. Although I’m a huge animal lover, I didn’t seek it out and frequently I don’t. I’m just the reporter who always ends up with the assignment.

That first one here was about a white cat named, Charmin, who had a rare condition that caused her to dribble urine. A local vet was trying to raise money so she could get an expensive operation to fix the situation.

Since that time, I’ve written about the animal shelter; a puppy named Oscar abandoned in a garbage can; an American bulldog mix named Petey euthanized just three hours after he was surrendered at the pound; and Copper, a little boy’s Chihuahua reported stolen to the Alamance Count Sheriff’s Department.

Oscar received a home. A few changes were made at the animal shelter after Petey’s story was written, and the woman who claimed she found Copper on the side of the road returned him. I like it when stories make a difference.

Animal stories tend to generate a lot of interest among newspaper readers. I still remember Assistant District Attorney Ernie Lee, who prosecuted the Marine who abused the Chihuahua in Jacksonville, pondering why people were so passionate about stories featuring injured animals.

“We have so many child abuse cases,” he pointed out.

This is why I had to listen when Gollnick called. I knew that I couldn’t just write a story about a missing dog. There are just too many of them and if I wrote her story, I’d open the door to the rest. But I asked a lot of questions to see if there was anything in the story that might earn it some coveted space in the print edition.

While as a Catholic I was taken by the fact that Hannah saved her first Holy Communion money for more than three years — a definite feat — and gave up a fancy birthday party in order to purchase Jazzie on her own, it wasn’t enough.

Then I remembered we have unlimited space on our Web site.  I suggested writing a brief story and running it on thetimesnews.com with some photos. My editors were in favor of doing it, and the story about the missing Jazzie remained on our “most viewed” stories list for two days, proving once again that newspaper readers – even online viewers – like stories about animals.

Next time, if other readers make the same request, we’ll ask that they write a brief story and include photos, which they can post themselves on the new interactive features on the Web site.

I spoke with Gollnick today and the search is still on for Jazzie, who recently was spotted several times in downtown Burlington near Lexington Avenue and Broad Street. Gollnick, Hannah and their crew of dog-searching volunteers have passed out fliers, hung signs and talked to a lot of folks with the hopes of finding Jazzie.

Anyone with information about Jazzie, who is black with white markings and about 11 pounds, can contact Gollnick at 675-6382. The dog was recently shaved so she might not look like a typical schnauzer. She is also wearing a new pink collar.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.