Dogged devotion

Life isn't the same without Buster, Adrianna Reeder has found.

His excited expression doesn't greet her when she gets home from work. The kids don't have their favorite jowled playmate.

And there's one less good listener in the Coeur d'Alene home.

"It's lonely," Reeder said on Wednesday. "He's irreplaceable. It doesn't matter if we went and got another dog. He's not replaceable."

Reeder hasn't lost momentum in her search for Buster, the English bulldog worth $1,200 that disappeared from the family's property on Dec. 1.

She has hung flyers and driven around. She has placed ads in three different publications, the one in The Press offering a $500 reward in bold font.

"That's all I can scrape together," said Reeder, a mother of seven.

She's convinced Buster has been taken, she added. And that he's still alive.

Buster, who Reeder bought from a breeder two years ago, was simply gone from the fenced front yard when Reeder came home one day.

Two other dogs in the yard were still there.

"He didn't just disappear off the face of the Earth. Somebody knows where he is," she said.

English bulldogs are among the 10 most stolen breeds, according to blog No Animal Left Behind.

Although animal theft is hard to prove, the situation does sound suspicious, said Laurie Deus, Coeur d'Alene animal control officer.

"They're very expensive dogs," Deus pointed out. "Those dogs can go from $2,000 to $5,000."

The motivation would simply be to own an expensive dog, it seems.

"It's not like an item that you steal and then pawn," Deus said.

She has general advice for finding missing animals, like passing out fliers with photos to local vets and shelters, especially if the animal is microchipped.

In her three years on the job, Deus hasn't heard of a stolen dog recovered, she added.

"No cases have been resolved," she said.

It isn't Buster's pricetag that has Reeder resolved to find him, she said.

"He was part of our family," Reeder said. "He was a nice friend."

In the truest meaning of the word. Buster was her constant companion, riding in the car with her, accompanying her to work at Coeur d'Alene Place Self Storage.

He was an affectionate pal through some of her toughest times, she added. Buster was there during her separation, and through the pregnancy and birth of her fifth child.

When her grandfather who raised her died, she could talk through her grief to the dog. She leaned on him when she had to put down her other dog of 13 years.

"He was the only one who I could cry in front of," Reeder stated.

She has received several reported sightings of the fawn and white canine. Once with a boy by Fernan Elementary, another time by himself in Hayden.

Anyone with information can contact Reeder at 755-5952.

She isn't giving up, she said.

"We're not going to stop until we find him," Reeder said.