Search continues for elusive dog By JANE MCHUGH Staff Writer
A motion sensor camera, global positioning systems, an Amber Alert on the Internet, around-the-clock surveillance, animal psychics and roast chickens are some of the tools employed by a dedicated group of volunteers on the lookout for an outsized purebred dog missing in the Bowie area.
Haggis, a Scottish deerhound, didn't get lost in an ordinary way. He bolted after his owners' brand-new SUV was totaled in an accident on Route 50 the night before Thanksgiving. The back window of the vehicle either shattered or popped out during the crash, enabling Haggis and another dog, a greyhound named Attila, to escape.
Attila was struck and killed by a car on the highway. But Haggis, a 1-year-old who is big, black, shaggy and weighs almost 100 pounds, has been seen and tracked along the isolated railroad tracks in Bowie and Lanham. Searchers have been unable to capture him. They think he may have wandered as far as Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
Last sighting
The last sighting of Haggis was Dec. 14 in the heavily wooded area behind Race Track Road near the Anne Arundel County line. Someone said they saw a large dog hanging around deer in the woods. Since then, no more sightings have been reported. To the volunteers, however, that doesn't mean the elusive Haggis still isn't out there.
"Deerhounds can run up to 30 mph and are bred to hunt deer in parks," said Haggis' owner, Yeonwoo Chung, 25, of Alexandria, Va. Early in the search "we came across a deer carcass with fresh maul marks," which may have been Haggis' instinctive doing, she said.
In fact, searchers have determined the undoubtedly traumatized Haggis seems to have been deliberately staying away from cars and roads. A dog tracker from Baltimore with a golden retriever, Brando, sniffed out Haggis. Brando picked up Haggis' scent and determined he was confining himself to the railroad tracks in Bowie and Lanham.
Other sightings of Haggis have been near the intersection of Route 450 and Hillmeade Road; behind the storage facility and the McDonald's on Route 197 near the Blade-News office; and woodsy neighborhoods in Lanham.
'Greyhound Amber Alert'
Many of the two dozen or more searchers are greyhound owners. They joined the cause because Haggis' "brother," Attila, was a greyhound. John Peterson, a greyhound owner from Bowie, printed 500 "lost dog" signs and helped post "well over 1,000" signs. "We covered everywhere we could in the Bowie area all the way up to Lanham and the beltway, just plastered everything," he said.
Greytalk.com, a Web forum for greyhound lovers, has allowed Haggis' inclusion in its "Greyhound Amber Alert" section. As of New Year's Day, "Lost Deerhound Haggis" had tabbed 7,800 hits and received postings from as far away as Missouri, Texas, Colorado, Canada and the United Kingdom.
"Sending my prayers and wishes Haggis is home soon," read a posting by "Greyaholic."
Noted another intelligent but ominous post: "The woods by the racetrack are huge. That may be one of the largest undeveloped areas in the (Washington-Baltimore) region. Check out the satellite view on Google Maps. The woods include the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge and go all the way to Fort Meade. Haggis is one smart dog."
Traps eluded
Christmas week, a spacious, rectangular-shaped metal trap containing a chicken was set up for Haggis behind the old racetrack on Race Track Road. The trap was designed to automatically shut itself if an animal crawled in. A hunting camera with a motion sensor and infrared capability was set up in a nearby tree to photograph Haggis in case he showed up but didn't go into the trap. The only four-footed friend it nabbed, though, was a tame black and white cat.
Volunteers, some with night-vision goggles, worked in two-hour shifts doing 24-hour surveillance on the trap for several days. They arranged their shift work on a sign-up sheet on greytalk.com.
Volunteers from outside Bowie and neighboring Crofton used their cars' GPS systems to find their way around the search areas.
Psychics fail
The search went beyond land and cyberspace. Two psychic "pet communicators" came forward but offered nothing specific about where Haggis could be, Chung said.
Also at Christmastime, Chung and her fiance, Jonathan Lebovitz, received the written investigation of the Nov. 21 car accident from Maryland State Police. Northern Virginia-based Chung and front-seat passenger Lebovitz were headed east on Route 50 on their way to see family in Bethany Beach, Del. They were riding in Chung's Toyota Scion XB, which she had just put a big down payment on and specially selected because it was comfortable for the dogs.
Accident
Near the highway's exit for Route 197 in Bowie, Chung's eyes blinked from harsh headlights approaching her rapidly from behind. The bright lights were from a 2007 BMW sports coupe with Ohio tags, that Chung said was "going really, really fast," which rear-ended her at a speed over the 65 mph limit. Her SUV bounced and spun around a couple of times, striking a guardrail in the median, at which point the dogs leaped out.
A Cincinnati man driving the BMW was charged with causing the accident, which also involved a motorcycle driven by a local off-duty police officer, said Cpl. Arthur Horton of the state police barracks in Forestville.
Rescue workers ordered Chung and Lebovitz to be taken by ambulance to a hospital in Washington, where they were determined to be OK. But to the couple's enduring regret, the mandatory emergency room visit kept them from looking for the dogs.
Volunteers help
The extensive, protracted hunt for Haggis was prompted by the manner in which he disappeared, volunteers said. "It was because the story was so heartbreaking," said Sally Adams, an adoption officer for Greyhound Welfare Inc., an East Coast greyhound rescue and placement group with mid-Atlantic headquarters in Takoma Park. "It was a miracle that Haggis survived the crash. The other dog, the greyhound, was following his normal instinct - to get away from the stressful situation and run. Lost greyhounds get hit by cars a lot because they are run-oriented," she said.
Scottish deerhounds share some characteristics of greyhounds but are hardier, said Crofton resident Donna Weeks, who breeds greyhounds for racing and adoption. She's coordinated the search for Haggis by going door to door and handing out fliers, making and taking calls on her cell phone, hiking along the railroad tracks and the WB&A bike trail and in the woods, and buying numerous roast chickens for the trap to tempt the lost dog. "When I lived in Chicago," Weeks said, "I heard of a greyhound on the loose for three months. It survived. It took shelter and ate people's garbage. And from what I know, Haggis likes to root through people's garbage."
Sightings
Weeks said Haggis evidently "has had success moving from place to place. When it snowed a couple of weeks ago, we could see his (paw) tracks and could tell he was hugging the bushes and staying as far away from people as he could."
People may not be sure where Haggis is but something else is for sure: He's brought the community closer together.
Workers at the storage facility in Bowie where the dog was seen have gone into the woods behind their business and shouted for him. Amtrak and CSX employees, several 7-Elevens, animal shelters, animal rescue groups, pet stores, the police, housing divisions and businesses are also keeping an eye out. Deerhound and greyhound owners from Baltimore and Washington have converged in Bowie, bringing their dogs with them. They'd meet at Safeway and talk, and meet on the Internet and talk.
A reporter heard a rumor that the Civil Air Patrol was looking for Haggis and sent an e-mail to the its Bowie Composite Squadron to confirm. "Searching for lost dogs is not considered one of the missions of the Civil Air Patrol. But as good citizens of Bowie, we can give aid in keeping an eye out for this missing dog. My squadron has been alerted accordingly," Jess Welch, the commander, wrote back.
"Everyone when they hear the story kind of gets a glistening eye," said searcher and greyhound owner Adam Hammond of Crofton.
And searcher Kristin Greulich of Bowie spoke of how she's bumped into people in Bowie who already know about Haggis. "They'll say, 'Oh, you're on the search for Haggis, too.'
"There are so many good people in Bowie," Greulich said. "Bowie is a large place but really cohesive when it comes to somebody trying to help somebody."
Searchers said the city of Bowie has told them to take down the hundreds of Haggis signs posted on telephone poles and other properties.
Greulich, who works for a pet-sitting service, said "Someone was out taking down a sign and an elderly guy was walking down the street with his dog. He said, 'Did you find Haggis?' and the (searcher) said 'no.' Then the elderly man showed the person his cell phone. He had programmed 'lost dog' into his phone. That just blew my mind."
The "lost dog" number to call if you see Haggis is Chung's, 202-492-4055.
