Six years later, ex-puppy is glad to be back home

By Rachel Tuinstra
Times Snohomish County Bureau

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Griffey, a pit-bull mix named for former Mariners star Ken Griffey Jr., shares his happiness with Alex Sawyer, who was 13 when her puppy disappeared from her family's front yard six years ago.

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That's when the chocolate and black pit-bull mix went missing from the Sawyers' front yard in northwest Snohomish County. Despite ads in the newspaper and fliers posted on telephone poles, Griffey was never found, said Sawyer, 52.

"After six or eight months we thought maybe he had gotten run over. You start thinking the worst," she said.

But on Monday, the family received a call from the Everett Animal Shelter letting them know that Griffey had been found wandering a road in the Machias area south of Lake Stevens.

	JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Alex Sawyer and Griffey get reacquainted after the dog's six-year absence. A microchip under Griffey's skin helped the Everett Animal Shelter find his owners.

The dog was taken to the Everett Animal Shelter, where workers scanned him for a microchip, which carries information about the dog's owners, said Bud Wessman, the shelter's director. Sure enough, the dog not only had a microchip under its skin, the information led the shelter to the Sawyers.

"He seems like an extremely good-natured dog, very mellow," Wessman said. "When someone said 'Griffey,' he perked right up. When his owners came, he just stood right there, content and happy. It must have been just as strange for him, wondering where they went six years ago."

Wessman said that 15 to 20 percent of animals that are returned to owners have microchips. But the shelter has never had a case where a microchip has helped an animal be reunited after so long, he said.

The Sawyers had a microchip inserted into Griffey — named for baseball star Ken Griffey Jr. — because the dog had been stolen once before when he was a puppy.

Free pet microchipping The Everett Animal Shelter will be giving away microchips to the first 200 Snohomish County pet owners on Oct. 10. The dog and cat microchipping begins at 10 a.m. at the animal shelter, 2732 36th St., Everett.

For Sawyer and her daughter, Alex, 19, it was like finding a long-lost family member.

"It was an amazing reunion; my heart was about to pound out of my chest," Sawyer said.

And Griffey seems to be adjusting well to life at the Sawyers' home on Priest Point on the Tulalip Reservation.

"I remember having a puppy, but he's completely different. He was a rowdy little puppy. Now he just wants to be cuddled," said Alex, who was 13 when Griffey disappeared. The dog was eight or nine months old at the time.

Whoever had Griffey seems to have taught him manners. Griffey sits when he's told to, offer his paws when told to "shake hands" and stays by his owners' side when they go for a walk, Terry Sawyer said.

"He seems happy, he doesn't seem like he was abused. He doesn't cower," she said.

Terry and her husband, Chris, have a few theories of what might have happened to Griffey. They speculate that the dog might have been stolen from the family's yard by teenagers, and likely ended up being cared for by another family. "Whoever had him knew dogs or took him to obedience school," Terry Sawyer said. "But I just want to read his mind, or ask, 'Where were you?' " Sawyer said.

Rachel Tuinstra: 425-783-0674 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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