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Lost and found dogs confound Menlo Park neighborhood

by Sandy Brundage

Here's one for the Sherlock Holmes case file: In Menlo Park, two dogs vanish from a locked house. They're found, two days later, in the bedroom of a vacationing neighbor's locked home.

A neighbor alerted the Almanac to the strange tale. A couple returned to a disturbingly empty house on Oct. 5 — their two Shih Tzus were nowhere to be found. All gates were locked, the home was secure. They concluded the dogs had not gone on the lam unaided.

After days of searching, the distraught owners got a call on Oct. 7 from a stranger reporting that, after being gone for a week, the stranger's family had come home to a disturbingly occupied house — the dogs were locked inside, trapped in a bedroom.

Linfield Oaks residents wondered what this meant. Did a thief break into the dogs' home and then use the other location to temporarily stash the Shih Tzus? Construction work going on at the home where the dogs were found may have provided access to the bedroom, but no suspects have been identified.

Police investigating the canine caper confirmed ownership of the mysteriously transported dogs, according to spokesperson Nicole Acker, but it remains unknown how they became dislocated in the first place.

"Still very odd, yet the dogs are back so we are all happy," the dogs' owner said.