#FindDigger – Ten Years Later

My wife & I have always been big into rescuing pets. We currently have two dogs and three cats.

Ten years ago, we had three dogs. Our kids were 4 and 2 years old, plus an older stepdaughter. One of our dogs was Digger. He was everyone’s favorite- the sweetest dog of all time.

It was August of 2015, and we were heading out to Disneyland. We boarded our dogs at a Palatine kennel, entrusting them to care for our family members.

My wife, two kids and stepdaughter immediately upon entering Disneyland.

As we were walking into the “Happiest Place on Earth” for the first time, Disneyland, the phone rang. It was the boarding facility. They called to tell us they lost Digger. They told us a story that Digger, our 45-pound shepherd beagle mix, bit a handler, turned around, then in one jump hopped over an 8’ fence and took off.

We thought, “That doesn’t sound like Digger”, but at the time had no reason to question the story. He had never even jumped on our couch, and was always so sweet and docile. We were 2,000 miles away. We were frantic.

We walked into the park reluctantly. The kids were crying. People were looking at us strangely. We tried to enjoy our visit, expecting the phone to ring to tell us they found him.

Well, they didn’t call. They didn’t find him. When I called a couple of hours later, I was told, “We’re taking a break from looking. He’s probably hiding somewhere.” We thought, “What? Keep looking. You lost our boy Digger!”

We immediately left the park, holed up at the hotel, and started calling friends who were at home to help. They jumped into action. We weren’t on Facebook, so they set it up for us. They put the word out on Lost Dogs and all the other suggested sites, and apps. Volunteers we didn’t know started helping.

Our love for Digger had no bounds. For example, a neighbor told my wife he had a friend with a helicopter. My wife told him to find the pilot and we’ll pay anything. So, while we were thousands of miles away, our neighbor with his friend went up in a helicopter scanning the Palatine area for him – especially given the pause in search of the kennel. 

When we got back two days later, he still hadn’t been found. I put on my marketing hat. I decided to tell the story to the local news outlets. WGN saw it, and immediately sent Sean Lewis out to our house to do a segment about it.

This is when things went downhill fast with the boarding facility. The facility was contacted by WGN to participate and make a statement. My goal was to find Digger. The Dad of the owner of the kennel, on the other hand, called me and absolutely cussed me out. “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt our business!” Dumbfounded by his tone, I told him, “I’m trying to find my kid’s favorite dog that you lost!” Things went down hill from there.

Our volunteers went into the boarding facility asking them if they could help. Jennifer and staff literally berated them, then the volunteers berated back. The main woman at the boarding facility literally started calling the workplaces of our volunteers (volunteers we didn’t even know personally) and told their employers they were harassing them and should be fired. (Certainly there were some people who were so horrified by the kennel’s behavior, they did some things we did not agree with. I posted often to “stay positive” and “keep this about finding Digger”, however, their actions were the reason for the reactions.) 

We started putting up signs. But, in the middle of the night each night, the signs all disappeared. We tried to put trackers on the signs, but they disappeared without a trace. Almost ALL of them. A local resident who was an avid hunter called me…offering to put up trail cameras to find the sign stealers. We did, they worked, and we were able to see that it was the the boarding facility owners and family removing the signs. This outraged the community.

One day, one of the volunteers (we had never met) spotted someone taking down the signs and approached the woman, who is the kennel owner’s mother. She recorded the confrontation, where the woman again blamed Digger (<– the video of the confrontation is here) with a story him biting multiple people (he bit no one), and admitted fully to being the ones stealing the signs we not only spent lots of money on, but were vital to finding Digger. Now the police were heavily involved. Detectives investigated whether their stealing of the signs constituted a crime.

An employee of the boarding facility commenting on the search

One of the multiple billboards put up along Chicago suburban expressways

The boarding facility owners and employees posted comments like this one from Ana. As an employee of the boarding facility, she tweeted that we’ll never find Digger, and she’s the one feeling anxiety, working for the place that lost our beloved pup.

When The Daily Herald newspaper got involved, they found that the story we were told about his disappearance was completely made up. He didn’t jump an 8-foot fence. He didn’t bite anyone. They weren’t even watching him at the time…the garbage collector told them they saw a dog run off. Their stories about him biting people were certainly ironic, given the father was a self-anointed “animal behavioralist”. 

We turned up the volume. We put billboards up on the expressways in town. Our message to our supporters and the community was “Try to take these down”!

We were on every news channel. While working downtown, I’d head over to Channel 7 or Channel 2 news and record a segment. Every single day and night there was something. The phone would ring with a local “sighting” that would turn out to be untrue, but I’d have to check out…often in the middle of the night. Crazy stuff like psychics reaching out, animal communicators, astrologists, etc. Our kids constantly thinking “today is the day we’ll see Digger again”.

One time, the Palatine police department called me because they thought they had found him floating in a pond. I rushed out of the office downtown, almost crying riding the Metra back. A neighbor met me at the pond. Police all around it. Turned out to be a bloated raccoon. 

Popular meteorologist Tom Skilling commenting on the search for Digger

We had literally thousands of people looking for him around the country…and the world. “Sightings” by the hundreds every single day (here’s a link to a listing of them just from a couple of days in September/October of 2015). Local celebrities talking about him.

We spent thousands on the search, and never found our boy. A good six months of my children’s lives were spent missing their favorite dog, crying, and with my wife & having to deal with this situation while those responsible for losing him lied and vilified.

I would literally get calls about sightings in the middle of the night. In some cases, I’d sometimes be running out at 2 a.m. to check them. 

We tried staying positive with people roasting us.

It was horrible on our family. It is not just the fact that we were painfully missing our boy; as dog lovers, we have an almost unnatural connection to our pets. The emotional energy of not even knowing the truth, and having this kennel lying about what happened, standing in the way of our efforts, and vilifying us AND OUR VOLUNTEERS. The physical energy of being on alert at all times, not sleeping some nights, and not able to fully attend to our responsibilities…as parents, and in my job. Not to mention the people who either blamed Digger, or blamed us for our efforts. Which led to this below…

“Did Digger the Dog Climb Out?” Front-page news in the Chicago suburban newspaper The Daily Herald.

A large law firm in town, Corboy & Demetrio, found out about this situation. They wanted to take the cast pro bono/contingent, because the founder was such a dog lover. They could not believe how evil the boarding facility owners were.

We filed suit, which ultimately ended in a confidential settlement.

Below is the Channel 7 news segment VIDEO of the lawsuit with me being interviewed. The lawsuit helped us get to what we believe probably happened (there was so much lying, it’s hard to be 100% sure even today, many years later) 

This didn’t have to be this way. Yes, we would do anything to have our boy Digger back, and would have done anything to find him. If they would have owned up and told the truth, this would have been different. However, this boarding facility was the epitome of evil to my family. They lost one of our family members. Lied about what happened. Did the absolute minimum to help initially, then did the absolute maximum to try to make sure we never found him. 

The hurt hasn’t gone away for any of us. This circumstance may have sparked my passion for transparency even more. We all make mistakes. Own them. 

That boarding facility still exists, including the owner and her parents.

The website still exists at www.finddigger.com – where so much more information, approaches to trying to find him, news coverage, a few of the literally hundreds of “sightings” that turned out to be false, and many pictures reside. 

Here’s the Facebook page. You can scroll through the posts. I did my best to stay positive…but did delve negative a few times. It’s been ten years, and there are still DMs here from local community members telling me they are still looking for him. TEN YEARS! www.facebook.com/finddigger

They posted pictures of the dogs, which we anxiously looked for every day. In this one, they look miserably hot, seeking shelter from the heat.

One of the billboards. Notice we never mentioned the facility’s name. Yet, they screamed at us about these – but experts all told us Digger was likely close by if still alive

Channel 2 news showing how Digger would play with the kids.