Family Spends Thousands to Find Missing Dog Sassafras

Thousands of dollars have gone in to the search for a missing pet.

“Definitely what is recognizable is this tail that she keeps up as she is walking along,” dogowner Beth Edinger said.

For almost three months she has been on a frantic search to find her family's 3½-year-old beagle mix Sassafras. The dog disappeared on April 8 when she got away from a dog walker in the Adam’s Morgan area of D.C. 

“The house feels empty,” Edinger said. “You know in those first few days I could swear I heard her walking around.”

But this isn’t your typical missing dog search. Edinger has printed up more than 3,000 fliers, had a robo call sent out to 1,000 homes in D.C. and hired a dog tracker who has confirmed Sassafras is still alive.

In total, Edinger’s spent almost $10,000.

“It is a lot of money and I don’t know when we started this we comprehended that,” Edinger said. “But knowing that she’s alive at this point we can’t say we’re giving up now.”

Sassafras was last seen on June 18. The dog tracker then picked up her scent two days later and followed it to the Tenley campus of American University.  There it’s believed the dog stopped at a water bowl for a drink. Now a motion sensor camera has been placed behind the water bowl to track if she comes back.

“We’re hoping to catch her on camera coming back there, which would sort of give us an idea that that’s a regular thing for her,” Edinger said. “From there we can set up a trap, or as my husband says, we’ll just set up a tent and start living there until she comes back.”

Edinger said there’s no telling how long this search will continue, but her husband and 2-year-old daughter desperately want Sassafras to come home to Takoma Park.

“We would like closure. So I don’t know what the future holds necessarily,” Edinger said.  “I can’t see us saying we quit when we know she’s out there.”

It is believed Sassafras is still wearing her dog collar and is still embedded with her identification chip. Anyone with information about the dog's whereabouts should call 202-664-2301.

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