Saratoga couple devastated by theft of dog from their front yard

/Home/News/Stolen Dogs

By Linda Goldston


Mercury News

Posted: 04/23/2009 05:13:45 PM PDT
Updated: 04/24/2009 08:02:44 AM PDT



How you seen this dog? Zak, a 10-year-old Low Chen... (Photo Courtesy of Bob and Janis McCormick)«1»Sometime between 7:15 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. on April 15, somebody came into Bob and Janis McCormick's fenced front yard in Saratoga and stole one of their 10-year-old Lowchen dogs.

Bob McCormick found the other dog, Morgan, shaking, cowering against the front door, and is sure the thief tried to take Morgan, too.

The loss has devastated the family, including Morgan, who keeps looking for his litter mate, Zak, poking around their favorite spots outside, sniffing Zak's pillow. The dogs were a lifeline for Janis McCormick the last several years as she dealt with the death of her father, her mother's descent into Alzheimer's and then death and her own battle with cancer.

"If I got my dog back, I'd get my energy back," Janis McCormick said Thursday. "Cancer is difficult and sometimes you get low and blue. Those are the days when my dogs would stay with me and make me laugh, popping in and out of the sheets, and running around."

The couple is willing to pay a $1,000 reward for the safe return of Zak, no questions asked.

"There are lots of ways the dog could be returned," Bob McCormick said. "If they'd just call me we could work it out. I'll pay the money."

Bob McCormick had noticed a white pickup truck near their home a day or two before Zak was taken. Janis McCormick had noticed the truck a couple of days before that. There were rakes and gardening tools in the back. Once, the truck was parked by the couple's mail box, another time


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the truck was parked on the upper side of the gate to their front yard.

"Either they stole him to sell him or they stole him to give to their kids as a pet," Bob McCormick said. "It's the most emotional thing I've ever gone through in my life and I am 66-years-old. For my wife, it's almost as bad as losing her father."

Janis McCormick has been cancer free for three years but also suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. So it was Bob McCormick the dogs would head for at 6:30 every morning, a pattern that was set when Janis McCormick was so drained from chemotherapy and radiation. The dogs would jump up on his side of the bed to get him up, then race to the door and bark to be let out. They'd go outside, do their business quickly and then ask to be let back inside for their treat.

"We'd repeat this until they had three treats," he said.

After Zak was taken, the couple contacted police; hired a pet detective, who had her scent dog scour the neighborhood with no luck; put out hundreds of flyers; visited local shelters; called dozens of veterinarian offices; put ads on Craig's List and in the Mercury News; reached out to every possible lost pet Web site they could find; and put two separate letters in every neighbor's mail box. They even handed out posters "to all of the workers at both Home Depots on two occasions," Bob McCormick said.

Except for a few days years ago when Morgan had to be in the vet hospital, the two dogs had been inseparable. And they were very tuned in to members of the house.

After Janis McCormick's parents moved in with them and her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers, the dogs took it on themselves to make sure McCormick's mother got exercise every day.

"They would go downstairs every day to get her to walk them around the house," Janis McCormick said. "She didn't remember much but when those dogs came next to her legs, she knew exactly what to do. The dogs figured it out on their own that she needed that."

McCormick said she isn't sure she would have won her battle with cancer if the dogs had not been with her all the way.

"Sometimes when you have cancer and the repercussions of cancer, you oftentimes can be very ill," she said. "If it hadn't been for these two little puppies, I don't know if I would have made it through.

"I never had children. These are my children."

Zak has longish white hair and weighs about 16 pounds. Anyone with information about him is asked to call the McCormicks at 408-741-5506.

Contact Linda Goldston at lgoldston@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5862.




R