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Tale of lost dogs begins at wreck

A family's two dogs were lost after an accident. One's dead, but the search continues for the other.

By GRACE CHENG
Published July 2, 2005

PALM HARBOR - The 81/2-by-11-inch flier on the door of the Y B Norml gift shop looks like a typical "lost dog" poster, but the story of the dog is anything but.

The small white Maltese pictured on the poster is Simba, a 9-year-old male missing for more than a week. Cropped out of the photo is Duke, an 8-year-old golden retriever that belonged to the same family. Both Duke and Simba were victims of a car accident on U.S. 19 on June 21.

Now Duke is dead, and Simba is still missing.

Duke and Simba's owners, John and Fanny Scargle, took their two sons Dilan, 6, and Nicolas, 4, on vacation to visit Mrs. Scargle's family in Colombia, on June 11. They left the dogs in the care of a friend, Michelle Perez, who had taken care of them many times before.

"I loved those dogs; they were very close to me," said Perez, 36, a sales representative for a company that makes computer hardware.

The day of the accident, Perez was taking her 2-year-old daughter, Sydney, to preschool. She was going to drop off the dogs at the Scargles' home in Dunedin.

They never made it.

About 10 minutes into the trip, Perez was driving south on U.S. 19 when a 74-year-old woman in a Cadillac pulled out in front of her, trying to go north on the southbound lanes north of Alderman Road. Perez couldn't stop, and her Ford Escape smashed into the Cadillac, spun, flipped once and slid on its roof. Perez and Sydney, who was strapped into a car seat in the back, suffered only minor injuries.

"I climbed out through the window and went back in to get my daughter," Perez said. "Thank God she was okay."

The Cadillac's driver was not seriously injured, Perez said.

But the two dogs were in the front seat, unrestrained. The crash broke the windows, and at some point, Duke and Simba escaped.

After being released from the hospital the same day, Perez went back to the scene to look for the dogs. The dogs were seen running around near the scene, frightened and not responding to the calls of people trying to help. People from local businesses, as well as animal control, were not able to catch them.

Two days after the accident, Perez got a call from someone who had seen Duke, the golden retriever.

It was raining hard that day. Mrs. Scargle thinks the thunderstorm had driven him out of the woods off U.S. 19, where he apparently had been hiding. Some people from the businesses on U.S. 19 saw the dog sitting on the corner near Firestone.

"Thursday, I walk outside and there's Duke," said Beverly Kelly, an employee at Y B Norml who had tried to help catch the dogs the day of the accident. "So I started going "Duke! Duke!' ... and he just takes off across 19."

Duke almost made it. He crossed the southbound lanes and nearly made it across the northbound side when a truck struck him.

Bob Prosecky, the store manager at Firestone, ran out in the rain with another employee to get Duke's body.

"The dog didn't look like it was going to make it," Prosecky said.

They took Duke across the street to veterinarian Bryan McGoldrick. Duke was already dead. Perez arrived at the clinic and asked McGoldrick to keep Duke's body until the Scargles came back. Then she called Fanny in Colombia.

"I almost died," said Mrs. Scargle, 35, a strategic account manager for IMC Networks. "When you leave on vacation, you know how you leave your stuff and you're always thinking, "I'm coming back home to everything the way it's supposed to be.' And thinking I was going to come home and not see Duke. ... That was devastating."

She had bought Duke as a puppy a few months before she and John were married on May 31, 1997.

"He was with us eight years, that's exactly the time that we've been married," she said. "He was our anniversary reminder."

Duke used to sleep in their bed, right next to Mrs. Scargle.

"At midnight, 2 o'clock in the morning, he would be moving his butt to make me move more," she said. "And I would be giving him the rest of the bed and my husband and I were all on the right side. He was so spoiled."

Now she puts Duke's toys in the bed next to her when she goes to sleep. She finds the smell of them comforting, as if his spirit were still present. And she spends her days doing everything she can to find Simba.

Simba belonged to John before he met Fanny. He slept in their bed too, at the foot, unless there was a thunderstorm. Then he would curl up next to their heads, or cuddle beneath their arms.

"He was so cute, he would grab a stuffed animal and start running around the house, to see if any of us would chase him, you know," Mrs. Scargle said. "I'm not giving up on him."

John Scargle, 45, Florida regional manager for Fuelman Corp., flew back to Florida on June 24 to help with the search. Mrs. Scargle flew back Sunday. Her sons are still in Colombia, where they will stay with her parents until August.

Nicolas and Dilan know nothing about the accident. For now, Mrs. Scargle said she prefers it that way. Every night on the phone, they ask how the dogs are.

"Right now, we're just telling them that they're fine," Fanny said.

Fanny is alternating between trying to find Simba and attempting to find other dogs to fill the void that Duke left. She plans on having two new dogs in the house by the time her sons come home. When they do, she will tell them that Duke died of old age, and she will show them the small green urn that holds his ashes.

"That might be an easier process, but we're still hoping we can get (Simba) back," Fanny said. "Because I can't imagine telling my sons, "Well, one got sick and died, and the other one is lost."

The Scargles have handed out numerous fliers like the one at Y B Norml and have talked to many people who say they saw Simba but were not able to catch him. Mrs. Scargle herself has given up time at her job as an account manager to look for her dog. She still hopes Simba will be found.

"We've looked tirelessly," Perez said. "We're grateful to be alive, but the main thing now is we'd like to be able to find Simba."

Mrs. Scargle said she wakes up every day with a stomachache, sick with worry.

"I wake up and I think, this is a dream and I open my eyes and I'm here ... I don't have my dogs. To us, they were not just animals, they were part of the family and they belong to everything that we did," Fanny said. "With Duke I have closure, but we're still wondering about Simba. Is he still alive? Did someone get him? ... The not knowing kills you."

[Last modified July 2, 2005, 01:21:22]