On July 4th, the lanky Husky Shepherd cross disappeared from the Douglas Road and Norfolk Street area
When Dolores Dignan, who lives in Burnaby, lost her son to BC’s poisoned drug supply in March, his dog, Chief, was there to comfort her – but now he’s gone, too, and she’s desperately looking for him.
The Husky Shepherd cross disappeared after being left in Dignan’s backyard in the Douglas Road and Norfolk Street area on the morning of July 4th.
“If I knew something happened to him and I knew he wasn’t alive, then I could get over it, I think, but without knowing, is he hungry? Is he hot Does he have water to drink? It’s like a child, ”Dignan told dem NOW.
To understand what Chief means to Dignan, you have to know something about their history.
Her 54-year-old son, Daryl McLean, adopted the lanky, athletic dog about four years ago, and the two were inseparable.
“He was by Daryl’s side every minute and every day,” said Dignan. “Daryl always put his arm around Chief and said, ‘We’re a couple.’”
“I knew he was gone”
MacLean had moved into the basement suite of Dignan’s Burnaby home earlier this year while renovating a home in East Vancouver.
On the days Chief stayed with Dignan, he waited by the cellar door for her son to come home.
One evening in March, before McLean went to his basement suite for the night, he had asked his mother to make waffles for breakfast because he had fruit he wanted to use before it went bad.
When she told her son breakfast was ready the next morning, McLean and Chief were gone.
She began to worry when she heard nothing from them all day and the next.
Dignan said her son struggled with an addiction to crack cocaine for 30 years and he sometimes disappeared for short periods and then came back, vowing never to take the drug again.
He usually called to say when he was coming home – this time he didn’t.
She drove to the East Vancouver house he had just renovated and saw his jeep parked in the back, but there was no answer when she rang the doorbell and knocked on the window.
All she could hear was Chief barking inside.
“Chief barked, barked, barked, and he never barks,” said Dignan.
She rushed back to her house to get the key.
Back in East Vancouver, she found her son.
“There was Daryl on the floor in the bedroom … I knew he was gone,” she said.
The coroner told Dignan that her son’s medication was contaminated with fentanyl.
“Such a lovable, friendly dog”
After that terrible day, Chief became her constant companion.
“He followed me everywhere,” said Dignan. “When I went into the bathroom, it was next to the bathroom door; if I went down he would follow me. He never left my side and when I went out he would jump in the car and come with me. “
On July 4th, however, this living, breathing source of comfort was also taken away from her.
Dignan said she let Chief out at around 7am as she usually did.
“Usually he was up in five minutes; he just went to the bathroom and came up, ”she said.
She heard two barks, she said, and then Chief disappeared.
Dignan is convinced that someone kidnapped him.
He knew the area, so she said Chief wasn’t lost and his chip gave her contact information to anyone who found him.
She has also contacted every agency she can think of and posted on every online site to no avail.
Because of his friendly temperament, kidnapping Chief would not have been difficult, according to Dignan.
“He just went up to people and wanted them to pat him,” she said. “He was just such a lovable, kind dog.”
Despite the time that has passed since his disappearance, Dignan has not given up hope that Chief can still be found.
“I just hope wherever he is he can get off, get away, and find his way home,” she said.
Dignan hopes anyone with information on Chief will call them at 604-294-0164.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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