Multiple dogs go missing in Chase County

On June 1, Liz Mollendor and two of her children went to see Carissa Hill’s new baby goat.
“It was a nice day,” Mollendor recalled. “I had the windows and doors open and my dogs were sleeping on the back patio.”
Mollendor’s son was in the basement at their home near Lamar.
“Usually if we leave both dogs outside they’ll go for a walk,” she added, “but they’ll stay at a neighbor’s until we pick them up.
“I didn’t even think about it. I just though ‘oh, they’re both sleeping,’” Mollendor said.
While visiting the goats, Mollendor didn’t have reception on her cell phone.
On their return trip when service returned, she realized she had a message from her husband asking if she had the dogs.
Fifteen minutes later, once service was more stable, Mollendor called home.
“Juni is here, but Mugsy’s not,” was the message from home.
Junie is Mollendor’s one-year-old Weimaraner, who is skittish to anyone she doesn’t know.
However, Mugsy, the 10-year-old pug, was missing. Mollendor said it was unusual that one dog would return without the other.
“That made me think, OK, he’s either face-down in a badger hole or he got hit or someone picked him up,” she said.
Mollendor and her family searched for Mugsy that Saturday night and again on Sunday morning.
“Our neighbors, bless their hearts, were out looking for him with their four-wheelers,” Mollendor said.
A few days later, Mollendor heard about Marcie Kelley’s dog going missing the same weekend, his collar found in the middle of their driveway.
Marcie and her family live near Enders.
Kelley’s dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Charlie, was microchipped and ended up in Lincoln.
Kelley’s Siamese cat, Simon, also went missing and has yet to return.
A week after Charlie went missing, Kelley got a call from Lincoln. Charlie was at a vet clinic there, getting checked out by a lady who said she had bought him.
Charlie is back home with the Kelleys. He was “pretty beat up” but has healed fine.
“He does seem to have some PTSD,” Kelley said. “He was even afraid of me (for the first day).”
Another near-abduction happened a few weeks later only two miles from Mollendor’s house.
Kristi Bernhardt’s Welsh Corgi, Gracie, was outside barking at a silver pickup that was backed up into the driveway.
“Usually when people drive up in my yard, I hear it,” Bernhardt said. “And not many park like this truck was.”
The truck honked, which caused Bernhardt and her daughter, Austin, to look out the window.
“The (truck) door was open,” she said. “All I could see was a hand motioning for my dog.”
When Bernhardt opened the house door to go see what was going on, the truck door shut and drove away.
“I got my little furbabies with me all the time now,” she said.
“I’m definitely more cautious