When U.S. Marine Stuart Smith returns to Auburn from a 2-year-long deployment to Iraq in September, his best friend will there with her own special greeting.
Last week, friends and family fretted that Smith’s tail-wagging, bone-chewing buddy Sasha, a 3-year-old brown-black labrador missing from her Lea Hill foster home since July 30, would be a no-show.
But after an article that appeared in the Auburn Reporter on Aug. 6, Sasha is back where she belongs.
“The article ran on Wednesday and we received an e-mail on Friday from a woman who said, ‘I think I have your dog’ and said she worked at Green River Community College, which is four miles away from our house,” said Betsey Howe, who agreed to take in Sasha when Smith headed off to boot camp two years ago. “We never thought she could get that far.
“The woman thought that the dog was lost and took her home, thinking she would try and find the owner,” Howe continued. “Then a co-worker saw the article in the newspaper and said, ‘I think this is your dog.’ The picture was critical so they could really compare.”
It looked like the right dog.
“We talked on the phone and exchanged the dog in the parking lot of Denny’s,” Howe said. “The woman said, ‘Do you really want her back?’ She really bonded with her in just a few days.”
Howe said Sasha “had gotten pretty well spoiled on her vacation. The woman who found her treated her very well, and that was such a blessing. The lady had two other dogs, and they all got along. She was really hoping she wouldn’t find the owner. She has asked for visitation.”
Since man and puppy first set eyes on each other at the Humane Society in 2006, they were inseparable. Sasha accompanied him on boats, camping trips and to work. But when Smith enlisted in the Marine Corps in September 2006, he left behind his car, his furniture and Sasha.
Howe’s house on Lea Hill seemed to Smith the perfect foster home. With lots of land to run on and two large labradors for company, Sasha learned the life of an outdoor dog, excelled at chasing rabbits, and mastered the intricacies of stick chewing.
But on July 30, Sasha did the four-mile mosey.
Howe and Smith’s mother, Paula Smith, posted notices about the missing dog in the neighborhood and queried construction workers in the area around Lea Hill’s new roundabout project and The Bridges subdivision.
“Stuart knows absolutely nothing about this whole story, so we are going to put together a little scrapbook called, ‘Sasha’s Summer Vacation,’ Paula Smith said. “So much was happening with Stuart at the same time, we didn’t want to worry him until he got here.”
