As Wanda Weeres and Darcy Wallator conduct their daily search for their dog Bory and the dog belonging to Wallator’s 79-year-old father, unverified findings of the dogs continue to surface but there has yet to be a reunion.
In late October, Wallator was visiting his father’s home near Longview and let his three-year-old Siberian Husky run with his father’s dog, an Akita-mix, while he was hooking up a boat to his truck.
“They only had 10 to 15 minutes out of the truck and they were gone,” said Wallator.
“We went up and down the highway right after we assumed they were missing,” added Weeres. “No sign of them. Nothing.”
The disappearance led the couple to the belief that the dogs had been stolen.
““I’ve been putting posters up, I’ve phoned every vet, the SPCA, I’ve been looking on Kijiji,” said Weeres. “I’m not giving up hope. It’s only been over two months. They’re out there somewhere. Someone has them and they’re just not giving them up.”
Wallator says he makes daily trips looking for Bory and Brody and has visited farms in an area from High River to Eden Valley, from Millarville to Chain Lakes, and no one has seen the dogs.
Across Alberta, dozens of pet owners have reported dog snatchings in recent months with many of the missing animals appearing for sale a short time after on websites including Kijiji.
Several people have contacted Weeres and Wallator claiming to have found their dog and offering to bring Bory to them in exchange for a reward. The couple did transfer hundreds of dollars to one person who was never heard from again.
RCMP officials say online attempts to defraud the vulnerable are quite common.
“That’s a version of a scam that we’ve seen online here for the last little while where someone posts on social media they’ve been victimized in some fashion - whether their truck was stolen or a snowmobile or a dog was taken – and they’re asking for people to help them relocate it,” said Cpl. Curtis Peters. “They can be revictimized when another scammer contacts them saying ‘I have your animal or your property, or I have information about your property. If you give me some money I’ll help you get it back’.”
“You have to ask yourself ‘if they have my animal and they want money to get it back, what is that?’. It’s verging on possibly some other criminal offences.”
As the couple remains hopeful they’ll be reunited with their beloved pet, Wallator says ‘it’s hell’ not knowing if Bory and Brody are being properly cared for.
With files from CTV’s Chris Epp
