Great news, our pickup that was stolen on Sunday, 1/21/2007 at 8:30am with our 4 border collies in it was found 36 hours later, Monday 1/22/07 at 9:30pm abandoned at a motel parking lot by DIA. The dogs had not been out of their kennels but were alive and well!
Thanks to everyone for all their emails, calls, prayers, and special thanks goes to the news media for bringing this to everyone’s attention making our stolen truck and dogs to hot an item for the thieves to hang on to.
This all happened in the suburbs of Denver, CO when we were there to get set up for the National Western Stock Show Cattle Dog Competition that Jim is the superintendent of. Jim had his dogs Trigger & Dot and Patti had her dogs Ben & Dixie for the competition. Friday 1/19/07 our dogs competed along with 50 other dogs in the preliminaries and Patti’s Ben dog made it to the finals on Saturday 1/20/07 with the top 20 dogs. Ben didn’t get any ribbons on Saturday but the trial went very well and you can see the posted results and photo’s on it on the NWSS’07 page (as soon as I get them there). Now I will start the story of what happened to us on Sunday.
On Sunday, January 21, 2007 we were getting ready to leave Denver from the Ramada in Northglenn, CO.
Jim had almost everything packed up in the truck and had our 4 border collies Trigger, Ben, Dixie, & Dot in their kennels in the bed of the truck after giving them a run and water. Patti made 2 trips to the vehicle from the room with luggage and such and had one last item to go. Patti put her purse in the vehicle which was idling and then locked it and went back in the Motel. Jim had gone to the front desk to check out. In only a mater of a few minutes Patti was rolling her laptop computer case out the door and the truck was no longer there. She went to find Jim at the front desk figuring he must have moved the truck. Jim reacted immediately and had the front desk call 911 to report the vehicle stolen. He then ran outside to find no pickup where it had been only a few minutes ago.
The police arrived immediately and began their investigation. Now this morning there was a snow storm and the roads were very slick to snow packed on the side streets.
During the rest of the day Jim & Patti were spending their time in semi shock and Patti got on the computer to alert the media. That was after cancelling all of her credit cards! Thank goodness Jim had his wallet and his cell phone with him and not in the truck!
Pete Carmichael came back to the Motel in the afternoon after the sheep dog trials and he let us use his truck to go to the nearby
Target. He was staying an extra night due to the snow storm which went on all day.
Patti had Googled up all the Denver TV media she could and emailed them the photo’s of the missing dogs. K2 and Fox 31 News showed their photo’s on the evening news.
Trigger, male age 4 Jim's Dog Ben, male age 2 Patti's Dog
Dixie, female age 9 Patti's Dog Dot, female age 2 Jim's Dog
After that we got a call about 10pm of a possible sighting of 2 border collies about 11am around Federal Boulevard and 44th Avenue. We got to use Pete’s truck again (thank you Pete!) and headed out to the area and were there until about midnight whistling for the dogs. All we saw were two foxes in different locations. One was getting his late night meal at a cluster of dumpsters! We were tired and disappointed but not deterred and headed back to the Motel for a restless night of sleep.
Next morning, (Monday 1/22/07) the Northglenn patrolman showed up to talk to Jim but had no real leads. At that time one of the other guests them know that the night before after midnight they were awakened by dogs barking and they observed 2 men walking around our pickup from their motel window. Patti also spoke later that day to another couple on the 5th floor who around the same time obsereved a chevy nova, late 60's or early 70's pull right next to the truck on the passenger side and then 2 men got out and walked around the vehicle (there were other people in the car).
The rest of the morning was spent with Jim going to rent a vehicle and Patti on the internet again. The word was sure out and there were lots of emails but no real leads.
That afternoon K2News and Fox 31 News both had film crews out to the Motel and interviewed us for their evening news.
Still no word on our dogs!
That evening around 8:30pm Jim & Patti got a call from the Aurora Police Department and they had found our pickup abandoned behind the Marriott motel on Chambers road out by the airport. The dogs were still in their kennels in the back of the truck. They had gotten 3 dogs out and given them food and water (Ben was too grouchy for them to release) and Jim could even hear the dogs in the background! We rushed to the area and were reunited with out family of dogs! What a flood of relief and gratitude for getting them back and the truck.
Officer who found the pickup and dogs
Fox 31 news channel came out and did a live interview! We didn’t get to bed until after midnight but this night we actually got some sleep. We had parked the truck 2 blocks away in the Police station lot as the back sliding window was broken out of the truck by the thieves to enter it and they still had a key.
Here is a link where you can see the video that Fox 31 News did. My Fox Colorado "Stolen Dogs Recovered"
The truck was in good running order and besides the rear window they did not damage it. All of the contents of our luggage was picked through and thrown in the back seat with the luggage stolen. Patti even got her Purse back and found the credit cards (cancelled of course) along with her drivers license strewn on the floor with the rest of what they left of our belongings. There was only about $25.00 in the purse that they took.
Some of the things missing were; Sirius radio player, ipod, computer printer, car jack, jewelry, and some clothing.
Tuesday, 1/23/07 we didn’t leave the Motel until about 10:30 am and even had another TV interview before we left. The drive home was thankfully uneventful and very comfortable with the cardboard Jim had ducked taped over the missing sliding rear window. The dogs got exercised several times coming home along with a stop in Fort Collins for Patti to get new Carhart pants to replace her stolen work pants.
We arrived home to Baggs about 7:30pm where things were cold, -1 degree, but our warm house awaited us and the dogs were home to their cozy kennels for the night.
Once again we cannot begin to express our gratitude to everyone who helped in our efforts which the police believed really made the difference in getting our dogs back to us. Thanks for all the emails and calls! It really helped us get through this. Hopefully life will now go back to its normal, uneventful routine!
