By: Sharon Aron Baron
A missing dog who was finally reunited with his owner died shortly afterwards due to the neglect of the person who was holding on to him.
Clyde, a Lhasa Apso/Poodle mix went missing on September 20, 2015 from his owner Caran Love’s home in the Lime Bay condominiums in Tamarac. A desperate plea on video, as well as a reward went out for his rescue because, as a diabetic, he needed insulin to survive.
Love and supporters put out flyers, shared on Facebook, and even offered a reward, but for months no one knew what happened to Clyde. The only clue was that a neighbor said she saw a man put a dog in a cloth sack. Love decided to hire a private investigator to help track down his scent.
Jamie Katz, a P.I. who specializes in lost dogs and cats, tracked down Clyde’s scent to a nearby unit at the Greens of Tamarac close to Lime Bay. This was a community where posters of Clyde were prominently displayed.
After police were called to the unit to ask questions, the owners denied having the dog. However, on November 10, less than 24 hours after Katz knocked on the door of the apartment, Clyde was dropped off at the Broward County Humane Society by someone claiming to live in Hollywood. Love was immediately called due to his microchip.
Katz said she believes that the profile of the person that had Clyde was someone who was mentally ill in some capacity to not have known how to take care of him. “He was skin and bones,” she said. “Only a mentally ill person wouldn’t be able to see this. Not only this, but he was also having seizures. We don’t have actual facts, we only have speculation. We don’t know. Somebody had him, we just don’t know who had him.”
Love was overjoyed that he had been found, however, Clyde was emaciated and in poor health. He had lost 15-17 pounds during the time he went missing so both her and Katz quickly brought him to the Coral Springs Animal Hospital, where he sadly passed away that evening of a heart attack.
“He was sick, but was so sweet,” said Katz. “We only had him for a little bit, but she got to say goodbye and she got to hold him. It was amazing. You can’t ask for more than that. She needed that. She needed that closure.”
“Somebody did have Clyde,” said Katz. “He had a collar and a rabies tag on when he went missing and when he was found at the Humane Society, that was gone and replaced with another collar, but you can’t blame anybody and just point fingers.”
She said this was one of the hardest cases she has worked on emotionally and physically. “This [dog] was the only thing in the world she had.”
