Service Dog Missing
Published 5:25 pm Thursday, January 19, 2012
Losing a best friend can be devastating; losing a friend trained to save your life is beyond measure. Karren Cooper, of Meherrin, can tell you all about it. The disabled veteran hasn't seen her service dog, Tia, since December 31.
“We spent every day, every minute together,” Cooper stated. “People here have seen Tia everywhere with me. She's been with me in stores, restaurants – she's even been in the emergency room with me.”
Cooper is an Army veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She is also subject to seizures.
Tia is a service dog trained to alert to signs of an imminent seizure.
“If I'm going to have a seizure, she would let me know ahead of time,” Cooper explained. “She would push me to sit down. She reminded me to take my medicine. I trusted Tia with everything, basically my life. She had the gift.”
Before Tia, Cooper seldom ventured out on her own.
“People would ask me to go places – I wouldn't go,” she said. “With Tia, I was there. Tia allowed me to trust.”
Tia is a four-year-old German shepherd. She is a cream/tan color with black saddle.
“The unique thing about Tia's coloring is that the black color doesn't go down her back legs, and instead of a black diamond on top of her head she just has a little streak of black,” Cooper related. “She's not a big shepherd – she's petite.”
On that December day when Tia didn't return with the other dogs after a walk around Cooper's Meherrin farm, her owner began searching for her.
“The other dogs ran through the woods looking for her – they had her scent until they got to the road,” she noted.
Cooper found Tia's dog tags in the ditch beside the road. She may still be wearing an orange collar.
“I wrote my phone number on her collar,” Cooper said. “It may be faded, but it should still be there.”
For the past two and a half weeks, Cooper has been searching non-stop for her dog.
“I don't sleep at night,” she said. “I've been getting up and driving around looking to see if I can see something.”
Cooper put flyers around town and notified local police and animal control officers.
“The police in Farmville have been really nice to me,” she said. “The Cumberland police and rescue squad were all good to me. In Crewe they've been really nice.”
Cooper is still smiling about an encounter with a police officer in Crewe.
“I flagged him down and handed him a flyer,” she recalled. “This big burly guy nodded and said, 'I understand – I don't know what I'd do without my poodle.' “
“We have one of her flyers at the shelter,” noted Ray Foster, Prince Edward Animal Control officer. He added that they are on the lookout for a dog matching Tia's description.
After Cooper posted her story on Facebook, she started to hear from people who wanted to help.
“A man I didn't know from Skipwith called and said he was a Navy veteran. He gave me $200 toward the reward,” Cooper said. “Another man from Meherrin I had never met came up to me and said – 'Here's $100 for the reward.' I've heard from a lot of people from away as far as Canada.”
The reward, Cooper noted, is now a substantial one, and will be offered for information leading to Tia's safe return.
Cooper appreciates the support from other veterans.
“When I have pups I donate a lot of them to veterans,” she said.
Tia was a popular visitor at the VA Hospital.
“The veterans all would pet her,” Cooper related. “She would bring a smile wherever we went.”
Recently Cooper met a lady at the DMV who told her she never left her house unless someone went with her.
“Everybody has a disability – you don't have to be blind,” Cooper noted. “When the lady saw Tia she just melted. I feel bad because I was going to email her information on service dogs – and then Tia went missing.”
Cooper has even heard from a psychic.
“I have had a psychic contact me,” she related. “I don't really believe in psychics, but I went to Crewe where she told me Tia would be and looked anyway.”
As sad as that might be, Cooper wants to know if someone finds her dog's body.
“If she were shot, tell me where she is – I'll bring her home,” she said. “This way I can stop. At least I'll know.”
Cooper still believes that Tia is somewhere – she just doesn't know where that is.
“I feel like she is alive,” she said. “As close as we were, I would know. It's like having a child – if something bad has happened to a child, you know.”
While her friends are encouraging her to keep a hopeful outlook, Cooper finds it increasingly difficult.
Cooper hopes that someone who has seen something or knows something about Tia will call her.
“I don't care if I have to look at a thousand dogs to find her,” she stated. “I don't want to know if you took my dog – just drop her off at the end of my driveway and let her come home.”
“Tia allowed me to trust. She took my little dark world and poked a hole in it,” Cooper added. “Tia taught me to live again, that's what she did.”
“Tia was my life,” Cooper concluded.
Returning that life is in the hands of someone out there. Karren Cooper is hoping and praying that they will do it.
If you have seen a dog matching Tia's description call (434) 223-7629 or (434) 414-4059. A substantial reward is offered for information leading to Tia's safe return.