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Alert city police officer sniffs out two stolen dogs

Nicholas Read
Vancouver Sun

July 29, 2005

For Diane Anderson of Vancouver and the Langston family of Everett, Wash., it was an answer to a month's prayers.

Thanks to the efforts of the Vancouver police department, their beloved pets, stolen from a parking lot outside a White Spot restaurant in south Vancouver, were returned to them late Wednesday evening.

Both dogs were recovered by police from a house in east Vancouver where the owner had earlier handed over two stolen cameras. The dogs were taken from their owners' cars while their owners were in the restaurant.

Sumo, a four-year-old Shih Tzu, was stolen June 24, and Joey, a three-year-old bichon frise, was taken July 5. Their owners have been frantic ever since.

"I can't begin to tell you how I feel," said 80-year-old Anderson, who was overjoyed to be reunited with Sumo.

"I couldn't cry; I was too happy. I didn't think I'd ever see him again."

For some reason the family that took Sumo clipped him down to his skin, she said.

"He's all shaved. His fur was about three inches long before; now it's really short. He looks like a terrier now.

"I'm just to glad to have him, but I'll be glad when his hair grows back too."

The Langstons -- Diane, Kurt and their two children, Megan, 9, and Danny, 11 -- hopped in their car as soon as they heard the news, and drove all the way to Vancouver Wednesday night to retrieve Joey.

They were in such a hurry that they forgot the necessary documents to get them across the border. That caused them some problems at customs, said Diane Langston, but on the way back when she explained to a U.S. border guard that they had rushed up to collect their stolen dog, he let them through.

"It turned out he knew about the dog so he was really nice about it," she said.

Joey was happy to see them too. "He was so thrilled, and jumping and hopping and bopping," Langston said. "He was so thrilled to get his family back."

She also expressed surprise that it was the police who found the dog.

"Honestly, I didn't believe it at first," she said. "I thought it was a hoax or a joke. I thought police would be the last people to find Joey."

Instead, she had pinned her hopes on a pet psychic who was only able to say Joey was with an Asian family and close to where he was stolen.

In fact, Joey and Sumo's rescue was thanks to the sharp eye of Sgt. Sheila Sullivan, who noticed the dogs when she and her partner, Const. Ryan Perry, entered the house on July 22 to retrieve the stolen cameras.

Between then and Tuesday, Sullivan studied the advertisements that Anderson and the Langstons had posted about their dogs and photographs published in the media, and realized she may have found the lost dogs.

"When we had a lull in the call load, we attended back to this person's residence," Sullivan told a news conference on Thursday afternoon." We phoned him, we asked him to meet us there, which he did. And we confronted him with the picture from the newspaper, and because we did not have grounds to get into the residence in terms of a search warrant, we advised him that if he returned the dogs, he would not be charged, and he agreed to do that."

nread@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005