PORT ANGELES — John Partch will pay $1,000 to find his family’s best friend.
Ernie, the Partch family’s 8-year-old Siberian husky, disappeared Dec. 13 from its Eden Valley neighborhood east of Port Angeles in what amounts to a canine conundrum.
“We scoured the hills around here and talked to our neighbors and went to the pound, with no luck,” Partch said Sunday.
But on Jan. 3, the family received three phone calls purporting to know where Ernie had been taken.
All three calls came from someone who worked with an Arizona company that installs and services communications towers.
One of its employees, the caller said, had returned from a job in Washington with a distinctive-looking husky.
Ernie’s markings are red and white. While they are not rare, they are far less common than the gray-and-white or black-and-white markings usually seen on the breed.
Mystery call
The caller said Ernie would be returned to them by airline once arrangements had been made, but the Partches have heard no word about the dog since then.
People have told the Partches that “somebody was attempting a scam to try to get money out of us,” John Patch said.
“But they never asked for any money. If it were a scam, it didn’t work out so well for them.”
Anyone with information about Ernie should call Terri Partch at 360-417-4811 days, or 360-452-3069 evenings.
