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Scam artist's target rests easy now Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Gold Hill resident Glenn Gaither was reunited with his dog, Blue, after a 15-month separation. Gaither was the victim of an Arizona scam artist offering to return his dog if he sent money. Blue, it turns out, was staying with Gaither's unwitting neighbors. By DANI DODGE GOLD HILL - Last year, a con man took Glenn Gaither for a sucker. He saw Gaither's lost-dog ad in the Mail Tribune and called collect. He told Gaither, a vice president at Bear Creek Corp., that if Gaither would send him $350, he'd get Gaither's dog, Blue, back home. Gaither, 42, smelled a scam and declined to send cash. But months came and went without his beloved pet's return. Even though Gaither is a former cop, always in the back of his mind was the thought that maybe he should have paid up. No more. Blue came home late last month. The purebred Weimaraner had been living with a family not 10 minutes away from Gaither's rural home. "You don't really expect to get your dog back after this long," Gaither said. "When she was gone there was a piece missing - I came home every day and she wasn't there to greet me. "I just feel a lot better that she's around again." Blue went missing in March 2000. Gaither got home from work one day and his two dogs - Blue and Blue's son Elvis - were missing from his fenced yard. A week later, Elvis showed up again at the house, but Blue was nowhere to be found. Gaither put up posters and called the animal shelter on a regular basis. He posted a newspaper ad. He heard nothing. He placed a second ad in July. That's when he got the collect call from Arizona. A frantic young man said his boss had stolen Blue and that he would get the dog back if Gaither would send him the money for a dog crate and an airline ticket. Gaither wasn't the only Rogue Valley resident hearing the same tale. The scam artist even called a Mail Tribune reporter who placed a phony ad to determine if the frantic young man was a dog-napper or a con man. After the Mail Tribune ran a story on the con, the man stopped calling Rogue Valley residents, but moved on to other small communities across America that have missing-pet ads posted on the Internet. Gaither kept looking for Blue. "He was still driving around neighborhoods looking for his dog," said Gaither's girlfriend, Kristi Grandin. "He still talked about her all the time: It was his baby. He'd never find another dog like her. She was the best dog in the world." Grandin sometimes thought it might be time for Gaither to get over it. But then the two were driving home on Highway 234 when they spotted a mustard-colored Mercedes with three Weimaraners milling around it. His brother had seen a similar car shortly after Blue went missing, and Gaither had been on the lookout for the Mercedes full of Weimaraners ever since. There it was. By the time he got his truck turned around, the man had the three dogs in the car. Gaither chatted with him awhile. They talked about Gaither's missing dog, and it turned out the man had gotten two of his dogs from the same breeder in Redding, Calif., where Gaither met Blue. "I was talking to the guy and trying to get a look at the dogs - Blue has some unique scars," Gaither said. "But I couldn't see them clearly, and I didn't want to accuse the guy of anything." They drove on. But Gaither thought one dog seemed to be intently checking him out. His girlfriend called him "paranoid." A month later, the mustard yellow Mercedes was in Gaither's driveway when he got home from work. The female driver said, "I'm sorry, but I think we have your dog." She said that someone had given them a sick Weimaraner a year and a half ago because they knew her family had Weimaraners and thought they could care for it. They took care of it, gave it its shots, and the dog got well. But maybe the Weimaraner was Gaither's dog, the woman said. Gaither and Grandin jumped into Gaither's Chevy and followed the woman to a house right up the road. Three Weimaraners came running out. One made a beeline for Gaither. In a quiet voice, Gaither said, "Sitzen." The dog sat. "I said her German commands and she did them without missing a beat," Gaither said. He then said "Load." Blue jumped into the pickup. "The night we got her back, he cried all night," Grandin said. "He's a happy guy." Gaither said the episode was one of the worst in his life - nearly as bad as losing a parent. But he said, the outcome showed him that despite the evil and astronomically bad odds, good can happen. "Keep hope," Gaither said of the lessons learned. "That and make sure your dog has good ID. I'm getting mine tattooed." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.