After 3 weeks missing, dog Frazee found well-groomed in gravel pit – Detroit Lakes Tribune

DETROIT LAKES — After three weeks of being missing, a miniature long-haired dachshund has been found in a gravel pit — alive and recently groomed.

The dachshund named Auggie enjoys the country life in rural Frazee, not far from the public access to Silver Lake. The 2-year-old was known to visit neighbors and check on the mailman, who often brought him bones.

But his owner, Kayla Bellefeuille Simon, said he was staying near her house. So when she hadn't seen him for an hour or two, she texted her neighbor. She hadn't seen him either.

“It was three Sundays ago,” Bellefeuille Simon said.

The family searched the property and the ditch along the nearby road, calling his name and waiting for him to return home. But there was no trace of the thoroughbred's tiny paw prints.

The family went home and started making signs. Bellefeuille Simon also posted several posts on social media, including recent photos of the puppy.

“I thought for a moment that maybe an eagle had come at me,” Bellefeuille said. “It’s small. But I felt like I would have found its collar or some clue that something had happened.”

Despite the fear and doubts that followed over the days, the family continued to search.

“After about two weeks, my 7-year-old daughter, Charlette, asked me if she would ever see him again,” Bellefeuille Simon recalls. “Auggie is her little buddy: she dresses him up and puts him in her cart.”

Bellefeuille Simon advised her daughter to remain hopeful, as it can take years for a lost dog to be reunited with its family. However, she refused to rest on her laurels and simply hope.

“I went through Craigslist and pet sites all the way to Nebraska,” she said, noting that it was her sister who made her aware that people might try to rehome a stolen pet for money.

No matter which way she looked, time continued to pass and there was no sign of Auggie.

“I started to think he might not come home,” Bellefeuille Simon said.

As hope faded, she contacted the breeder she had purchased Auggie from.

“I asked if she had any siblings from Auggie,” she said.

It turned out that the breeder had her sister and, after hearing the story, he agreed to part with her.

“I took my daughter to see the dog, whose name is Daisy, and they immediately fell in love,” she said, adding that when her daughter told Daisy how excited she was for Auggie to be reunited with his sister, it broke her heart.

It turned out her daughter’s hope wasn’t in vain. While shopping in Detroit Lakes, Bellefeuille Simon received a screenshot of a post. Someone had found a dog that looked just like Auggie.

Bellefeuille Simon sent a message to the Detroit Lakes resident who posted the post. (The person was contacted, but was out of town and unavailable for comment.)

“She explained that her husband was in a gravel pit loading a side-by-side when a car pulled up, opened a door and let out a dog,” Bellefeuille Simon said.

The gravel pit is about a mile from where Bellefeuille Simon lives.

“I'm grateful he was there because there's a lot of wildlife between the gravel pit and the house, and I'm not sure he would have survived,” Bellefeuille Simon said.

The car that dropped Auggie off was described to Bellefeuille Simon as an older model white sedan with a rounded body. The couple in the vehicle are believed to be between 25 and 35 years old.

Bellefeuille Simon was informed that the man who happened to be at the gravel pit saw the dog and turned off his diesel side by side, so as not to scare the puppy with the loud noise.

“He called the dog,” Bellefeuille Simon was told, adding that the dog eagerly ran toward him, jumped into his vehicle and sat beside him as he drove home.

The couple posted a photo of the dog on social media. Half an hour after posting, Bellefeuille Simon was on his way to see if the dog that looked like Auggie was really him.

As she pulled into the Good Samaritan driveway, she saw him jumping with excitement, as if he knew he was about to be reunited with his family.

“His collar and tags had been removed, he smelled like he had taken a bath, his nails had been clipped and he had no cocklebur,” Bellefeuille Simon said, noting that these indicators suggest he had not wandered into the wild for three weeks.

Bellefeuille Simon doesn’t know if the people who took Auggie in dropped him off because they saw the “lost dog” posts she posted or because they realized he had a microchip that would be found once he was taken to the vet. What she does know is that their pup is home and about to meet his sister.

“When I suggested to Charlette that maybe we didn’t need two dogs, she insisted, saying, ‘Mom, they’re part of the family!’” Bellefeuille Simon said.

Auggie and his sister will likely both be equipped with tracking devices, Bellefeuille Simon said.

“We are also considering putting up a fence in the garden,” she said. “His loss was a difficult time and we don’t want to go through that again.”

Bellefeuille Simon continues to search for the people who kidnapped Auggie and hopes to identify them so they can be held accountable. She asked anyone with leads or video footage to contact her on Facebook.

She also suggested that those buying a dog on Facebook ask for veterinary records, to ensure they are not buying a stolen animal.