"Sophie", Hungarian Pumi, Oakland - Found!

This is a picture of a Hungarian Pumi. It is not a picture of Sophie.

Sophie is a Hungarian Pumi, a rare breed in the US. She is five years old, microchipped and spayed. Sophie is a shy and nervous type of dog and had gotten out in the past. This time is believed she dug her way under the fence while her people were away at work. She had been missing for a couple of days when I was called.

Since Sophie and her people go for regular walks in the neighborhood, we had to first find out where her scent was not. We started off to the left of the house. We did find a track and then continued to follow it down Broadway and then to MacArther Park. Here we found a lot of Sophie's scent around the dog park and behind it, which was very isolated along the freeway. She circled this park a couple of times. We did find a feeding station for cats. There were numerous bowls of food. I could see why Sophie would hang out in this area.

We checked all the surrounding streets leading away from the park and finally found the trail leading away from the park. This led us eventually back in the direction near to Sophie's home. However, we did find something very interesting along the way.

We were following the trail along a sidewalk and headed toward the back of an appliance store. The back yard had a large moving truck sticking out onto the sidewalk and with its back door pull up. Dino was fanatic about wanting to jump up into the back. He was attempting to do it himself, but we had to find an employee first to get permission. Once we did after several minutes, I put Dino up there and he checked around and in the cab. The owner confirmed that this truck had been outside here since about 7 AM that morning as he was moving things in and out. We checked around the yard which was full of machines and other equipment. The yard was totally fenced in. We guessed that Sophie had probably gone into that yard and possibly jumped into the back of the truck, which Sophie's person confirmed was possible since Sophie was known to scale eight foot fences.

We checked for a trail leading away from the yard and eventually found a backtrack and then down another street. The track then led back up to near Sophie's house, about one block away. The track continued up the street. The owner decided to stop the track here about a five hour search. She said she would check for Sophie up in that area, which she was familiar with.

I received a call later that afternoon and she said that Sophie was found near a cemetery, just up the road a few blocks from where we had stopped the track!

(entered into lost pet questionnaire 4/7/11)