Tofu is now safely back home in North Battleford. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

RCMP investigation

North Battleford resident relieved to have stolen pooch back home again

Aug 12, 2021 | 5:59 PM

A North Battleford woman is relieved to have her dog back after she says it was stolen from outside her home.

Autumn Scoffield reported Tofu, a purebred chihuahua, missing after leaving it outside briefly before breakfast in her backyard on Aug. 6.

“I didn’t think he had gone far,” she said.

She scoured her neighbourhood in the southeast end of the city and had help from a neighbour putting up posters as soon as her dog was missing.

Scoffield also then contacted local vets and the Humane Society as her dog has been microchipped with her current North Battleford address.

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She says, on Aug. 8 an elderly man in Big River First Nation contacted her saying he purchased the dog for $200 from a woman whom he didn’t personally know. But he thought the puppy may be Scoffield’s. The man’s daughter recognized the dog from a poster she saw on Facebook about it being missing, and quickly alerted him that he had been sold someone else’s dog.

When the man sent a photo of the dog, Scoffield knew it was Tofu.

With help from her neighbour who drove her, Scoffield met the man halfway in Spiritwood. And the gentleman gave her the dog back.

Scoffield said she paid the man a reward for the dog and for fuel coverage.

Now, she is just happy to have her dog home again.

“It could have been a whole lot worse,” she said, adding that Tofu was “beyond happy” to be back with his owner.

“[When] we came back, everything felt like it was back to normal again, I guess,” Scoffield added.

Wondering how the dog first got out, she said he may have escaped from her backyard by crawling under a space beneath the fence. So she reinforced the structure for any possible openings, and is being careful whenever Tofo needs to go outside for a potty break, and is putting him on a leash.

“I am vigilant, not keeping him out of my sight at all,” she said.

As a newcomer to North Battleford, Scoffield says she isn’t disheartened by what happened. If anything, she said she is touched by the kindness of her neighbours who helped her look for her beloved pet.

“Everyone was happy to help,” she said.

RCMP Sgt. Neil Tremblay says police are investigating this incident.

He says he isn’t aware of a pattern of dogs being stolen at the current time, but adds it’s always good to be careful.

“We’ve got a handful of calls a year of dogs that go missing or are potentially stolen,” he said. “But as far as there being a string of them, I am not aware of it.”

Tremblay said a dog is similar to any other valuable possession that could be at risk of being taken though.

He said people should all have their pets microchipped as there is an app to track them if they are missing.

“It certainly helps if the dog is registered,” he said. “If they are chipped that also helps because we have had one or two investigations in the last couple of years where we were able to pindown the location quite accurately with the chip.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow