THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505260052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
WELL, WOULDN'T you know it, here we are in the week of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday and along comes a case for Sherlock Holmes.
Welcome to the Case of Dory's Duplicate Dogs.
Our true story begins two weeks from last Monday. We find Dory Nissen, the mother of two small children, preparing to leave her Virginia Beach home for work at CBN.
First she must get her two children - ages 1 and 4 - into the car so they can be dropped off at a nursery.
The children are ready. And Gunther, the family dog - a pure white German shepherd - is there wagging his tail. Gunther watches as the 4-year-old is led to the car.
When Dory returns to the house for the 1-year-old, Gunther slips out the door, exiting unseen by the mother or the children.
Later in the day, when Dory returns home with the children, she is shocked to find Gunther gone. Gunther is like a member of the family. He makes the children and Dory feel more secure when Jene Nissen, the father and a lieutenant commander in the Navy, is away on his ship.
They wait all night long for Gunther to return. But he doesn't. The next morning Dory phones the city pound. She describes Gunther and tells the woman handling her call that the dog has a collar and a tag with an identification and phone number on it. A pure white shepherd weighing about 90 pounds and only 14 months old, she reports.
``We were worried sick about losing Gunther,'' Dory said. ``At night when my daughter Monica, who's four, said her prayers, she prayed that Gunther would be returned. My husband and I did the same.''
Two days after Gunther disappeared, it seemed their prayers had been answered. As Dory was driving to the nursery, Monica saw a white German shepherd walking on the sidewalk beside Lynnhaven Parkway.
``There's Gunther!'' Monica shouted. ``God brought him back.''
Dory stopped the car and got out. ``I called the dog but he surprised me by darting away,'' she said. A man who saw what was happening helped her corner the dog and put a leash around its neck since the collar was gone.
The missing collar didn't surprise Dory because in her last conversation with the woman at the pound, she was told that dogs often lose their collars when they are roaming. Besides, the dog was clearly Gunther. ``It had Gunther's nose marking (a black stripe down his nose) and cheek freckles.
Delighted to be reunited with the dog, Dory took it home. ``He was filthy and wet,'' she said.
They cleaned the dog up. And things seemed normal. The dog roamed around the house a lot more than the old Gunther had. But it ate Gunther's usual food and even slept between the wall of their bedroom and the bed, as Gunther had always done.
True, the dog was a little more hyperactive than the Gunther they had known. The hyperactivity concerned Dory. She phoned a dog trainer about the problem. She was told that dogs who ran away as Gunther did, were probably discovering female dogs. It was natural for him to be like a restless teenager, the trainer said.
Two weeks passed. This past Monday Dory's phone rang. The woman at the pound was on the other end.
``Good news, we've got Gunther,'' the woman said.
Dory was stunned. ``I was in total disbelief,'' she said. ``My first thought was that someone had found Gunther's collar and put it on another dog. But she described the dog and it was a white German shepherd.
``Then what had happened began to sink in. We had someone else's dog.''
When Dory went to the pound to pick up Gunther, he jumped up on the cage and was very happy to see her, licking her face, tail wagging. She said Gunther had been well cared for, wherever he had been. But no one had phoned the number on his collar.
The unsolved part of the case is the other white shepherd. Who owns it? And what is the dog's name? The Nissens want to return it to the proper owner.
If you think they have your dog, you can phone me at 446-2329. And how will Dory know that the person claiming ownership is the real one?
``We're counting on the reunion scene to give us clues,'' she said.
Stay tuned. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Richard L. Dunston, Staff
Dory Nissen holds the two dogs involved in the case of mistaken
identity. Her dog, Gunther, is at right. The Nissens arre looking
for the owner of the other dog.
by CNB