Happy ending: Wowee comes home

A Clearwater ice cream vendor found his traveling companion through Pinellas County Animal Services.

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd] Wowee gets a smooch from Tony D'Addario during one of his delivery runs. The two were reunited Saturday after she was missing for almost two weeks.

By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 15, 2002

Tampa Bay area children -- and local business people -- can rest easy.

Wowee, the lost pet chihuahua of a popular ice cream man, has come home.

Tony D'Addario of Clearwater lost his little "girlfriend" Oct. 2. Since then, the veteran Bomb Pop salesman took a short vacation to search for his dog and mourn for what could be the worst: that Wowee was dead.

But Wowee was alive.

The ice cream vendor's dog was found just days after she went missing. A man followed the dog into an Eckerd drugstore and then took her to a loving home.

"I was heading north on Missouri, and I see this little furry creature kind of scuttling through traffic," Judah Dobin said. "My instant thought was that it was a rodent or something, and then I saw that it was a little dog."

Wowee ran into the parking lot on the corner near Cleveland and Missouri streets, then walked up to the sliding glass doors at Eckerd. Dobin walked behind her and let her in, thinking that her owner was inside.

But nobody knew Wowee, Dobin said.

After he conferred via cell phone with his friend Josie Romero, Dobin got a large cardboard box and took Wowee out of the drugstore.

Wowee's new home was with Romero, her mother and her twin toddlers. The little twins liked to call Wowee "Doggie."

Romero frantically called the police and every animal shelter, leaving her name and number.

"I knew this was a well-kept dog," Romero said.

D'Addario reunited with Wowee on Saturday after he looked through a special notebook kept by the Pinellas County Animal Services in Largo. The notebook lists names and phone numbers of people who find stray animals.

"I looked in the book, and Wowee was in the front page," D'Addario said. "It said: "Found dog on Cleveland and Missouri.' Sure enough, I called the lady up, and she said, "Describe the dog."

D'Addario did.

Peggy Northrup, who works at Mercury Technology Services in Pinellas Park, breathed a sigh of relief. Northrup was one of many Wowee supporters throughout the Bay area

Wowee and Tony visited Northrup's firm every week when Mercury used to be in Tampa, Northrup said. Northrup read about Tony's problem in the St. Petersburg Times and immediately informed her office.

"Imagine our shock when we looked in the paper and saw an article about Wowee," Northrup said. "We were willing to chip in for any reward for her safe return."

D'Addario, who also runs a lawn care service, wanted to cut Romero's lawn. That offer came right on time, she said.

Having just moved to Clearwater from New York, Romero had never before cut a lawn and had been warned twice by her landlord to trim the greens to a reasonable length.

"I've never mowed a lawn in my life," Romero said. "(Tony) was such a doll. He did something so valuable for me."

D'Addario would have done anything for the person who found his beloved pooch.

"I was the most happiest man in the world when I found Wowee," D'Addario said. "Now I'm going to be famous. I'm waiting for Taco Bell to call me up."

-- Adrienne Samuels can be reached at (727) 445-4157 or samuels@sptimes.com.

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