Sawyer’s dogs come home

After a weekend search, family friends locate missing dogs

Stacey Manning

B-A sophomore Sawyer Kline and his dog Bob are inseparable, so it was a major family emergency last weekend when Bob went missing in Tipton.

Kayla Kustaborder, Staf Writer

A BA sophomore and his family were having the time of their life on a cruise when they received devastating news, a call from their house sitter saying that their dogs, Bob and Mia had escaped.  

The family is the Kline’s. Sawyer is a 10th grader and his parents, Stacey and Dale, are well-known photographers who work with schools throughout the area. 

Bob was found on Sunday in an old mail pouch barn on Bell-Tip road. He spent two nights there and apparently a farmer went to see the barn that day and Bobby came out and jumped in his truck. He spent two nights there with cats. 

Sawyer said, “Judging by Bobby’s track record, I figured he and Mia were just around the corner near my house but he wasn’t.” 

He had been let out of the gate around 9 in the morning and had been traipsing around the Tipton area for hours. 

He immediately sent at least ten messages to his friends and football players that lived in the Tipton area to keep a look out for his boy. His grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins came to Tipton from Centre County to search and so did his father from State College.  

Bellwood-Antis school nurse, Kelly Hoover, played a huge role in this story. Her husband saw on Facebook that Bob was missing and he told their neighbor who walks their dogs all over Tipton and she told her exercise class about the missing dog. A husband of one of the girls in the exercise class was the one that found Bob when he went out to feed his animals at the barn. The Hoover’s went and picked him up and sent a picture to Dale to confirm it was Bob, fed him, then Dale gave them instructions to get him back into the house.  

Sawyer was touched by the amount of people who went to look for him. All the prayers and hope towards Bobby kept his head up. He was amazed that people took time out of their schedules to come and look for him. He said people from Mo Valley who are friends with the house sitter came down to search the woods.  

Sawyer said, “My mom and I joked that Bobby, knowing his love of sleeping and couches, was on someone’s couch who doesn’t have Facebook and was watching jeopardy then. That really kept us in good spirits.” 

The whole night he was looking over Facebook posts and hoping for a sign of Bob. He didn’t expect the turnout with all the Facebook posts. His dad offered to fly back from Florida and search for both dogs because he knew where they ran and could find them. It wasn’t the first time this happened. This had happened a couple years ago when his mom went on a cruise but him and his brother, Mack, had secured both Mia and Bob with the help of posters and someone had him. 

Sawyer would like to thank Duke Brunner, Austin Desch, Jason Shade and many more for searching. 

“I felt hopeless and wanted just forget about vacation and go home. I felt like I couldn’t help and I needed too. I must’ve paced for hours and hours. Mia was found that night but I was still worried about bobby and thought he was scared and cold,” said Sawyer. 

Sawyer also added, “I hope I would wake up to good news but I had to wait two whole days of not being able to eat or have fun until I got the news he was home.”