Summerland family refuses to give up on lost pup

PENTICTON – A Summerland family whose dog was lost in late April haven’t given up hope of being reunited.

Rob and Jodie Conti of Summerland are heartbroken after losing Grace, their four-month-old puppy, on April 30, but they continue to believe the dog will return to its rightful home.

Jodie spends most of her day in the family’s Summerland home, where the family’s purebred German shepherd romped in the backyard.

“I’m normally home every day, so it’s kinda a weird the one day we left Grace outside for a few hours while we were away, and when we got home, she was gone,” Jodie says.

She figures someone either took the dog or let her out.

“We thought she was safe in the back, the yard is fenced,” she says. “She’s an outdoor dog and enjoys being outside."

The family home is located in downtown Summerland, so if someone let Grace out, somebody would have seen her, Jodie believes.

“She’s a pup. She would have wandered to someone, she wouldn’t have disappeared into the woods,” she says.

The family has received a few leads from community members who thought they may have seen the dog, but were later found not to be Grace.

“We had a friend who was sure they had seen her in a dog park in West Kelowna. She even walked up to the person, who said it wasn’t their dog, they were just dog walkers. She was certain it was our dog but there’s no way to follow up,” Jodie says.

Jodie is asking anyone who thinks they have seen their dog to take a photo, preferably of the dog’s face.

The Contis have called the B.C. SPCA, the dog pound and Argo Road Maintenance. They have also phoned veterinarians from Penticton to West Kelowna to ask them to be on the lookout. Posters have been placed in Summerland streets, but Jodie says in two areas of town they have had to replace ones that were ripped down on two separate occasions.

“It was almost like someone didn’t want the message out in that area. It was weird,” she says.

“I’m hoping the more noise I make, the person will get scared and just drop her off. The point I want to make is I don’t care who took her, I don’t want to make trouble for the person who took her — I just want my dog back. You turn her in, you give her back — I don’t care about you, I just want my dog back.”

The Contis can be reached at 250-486-0844.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.