Two French bulldogs that were missing for a month were found in a pair of crab pots dead.
Brothers Yoda and Whiskey, who were about one year old, vanished the day before Valentine’s Day in Thorne Bay, Alaska, and their owners had been frantically looking for them ever since.
‘While conducting routine shellfish pot inspections near Thorne Bay, AWT (Alaska Wildlife Troopers) Ketchikan located two crab pots near the Thorne Bay Harbor,’ wrote the State of Alaska Department of Public Safety on March 14.
‘Each crab pot both contained the remains of a domesticated dog.’
Yoda’s owner, Esther Martin, said, ‘Honestly, I’m still a little in disbelief.’
‘They were the sweetest dogs you’d have ever met,’ she told KTUU on Thursday.
‘They would have jumped in a vehicle with anybody.’
Martin said that she, her husband and brother-in-law brought the pups to an active logging unit where they were working and that they realized they disappeared when they took a break at 9.30am.
‘We were immediately suspicious but had hoped that they would return on their own, and it just took longer and longer,’ she said.
Her husband, Kane, said the dogs would go to work with them daily and run back and forth.
‘We figured they just went up and stayed at the pickup but they didn’t. Somebody came by and picked them up,’ he told KTOO.
He suspects that someone kidnapped the dogs at Sandy Beach Road nearby.
‘My brother-in-law searched throughout the night. He went back to the same area multiple times after they got done working,’ Esther said.
‘We left items of clothing, we left their dog beds, we left food. We rode around on the quad for days just searching every road, every muskeg, every trail and they were just gone.’
The Martins posted flyers on their missing dogs with a $500 reward, and doubled it a couple of weeks later.
Anyone with information on the crime is urged to contact the Price Of Wales AWT Post. Kane said he is offering a $2,500 reward for tips on the culprits.
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