DelDOT fines Newark woman for lost-dog signs

Several times a week for nearly four years, Donna Watson of Newark calls state animal control to see if officers have picked up Rudy, her shrewd miniature dachshund.

Then she steels herself to call the Delaware Department of Transportation to see if Rudy has been picked up – in another form.

The smooth, short-coated red dachshund with the soulful eyes has become the talk of Brookhaven and beyond since he went missing from a pet sitter's yard on Christmas Day of 2011.

Meanwhile, the blaring-yellow "Still Missing" Rudy signs and stickers affixed to traffic light and utility poles throughout Newark have attracted unwanted attention from DelDOT.

Last month, the state agency fined Watson $175 for seven violations of interfering with the public right-of-way. That is in addition to the $25 Watson already owes for her first violation in 2013, which has not accrued penalties.

Watson denies that she placed the offending signs, noting that any one of her 13,000 Facebook followers can print them off her "Bring Rudy Home" page.

Perturbed, she has launched a letter-writing campaign against DelDOT on Facebook and Twitter, accusing the agency of "selective enforcement" of its sign laws. To buttress her claims, she has snapped photos of roadside memorials, also illegal in the right-of-way, which DelDOT has ignored for years.

One, at the corner of Kirkwood Highway and Farrand Drive in Milltown, honors a 1998 victim of a DUI accident. Another, on Del. 4 near Marrows Road in Ogletown, decorates a traffic light sign with two bouquets of faux flowers and three wreaths.

"It's about equality under the law," says Watson, 61, who has petitioned the state to create a lost-and-found pet registry. "Who are they placing the greater value on – living beings that are lost or people that are dead?"

"It's not a fair comparison," responds Jeff Leonard, DelDOT's outdoor advertising and roadside control manager. Unlike signs, roadside memorials are often confined to one intersection and don't include contact information.

Because of limited staff, DelDOT's enforcement of sign laws is a complaint-driven process, he adds. Workers remove 50 to 200 illegal signs a week. Those wishing to erect roadside memorials are encouraged to use the Delaware Highway Memorial Garden located at the Smyrna Rest Area.

Signs defacing public streets, such as those advertising mattress sales or "We Buy Houses," provoke more complaints than memorials, Leonard says, because they distract drivers and are perceived as degrading a neighborhood.

Transportation workers don't log individual complaints, but a department spokesman said district staff reported anecdotally two to three dozen complaints about Rudy signs and stickers over the last three years.

Rudy's situation is unusual, according to Leonard, because of the sheer number of signs and the length of time they've been posted. DelDOT employees have resorted to painting over the stickers to save time, he says.

After Watson received her first DelDOT warning in 2012, she enlisted Sen. Karen Peterson, a Stanton Democrat, to introduce legislation to try to change the sign laws by exempting signs for missing people and pets. Peterson encountered opposition from DelDOT officials, who cited a 1993 federal court decision that raised free speech concerns about limiting some signs and not others.

"It's not a matter of the state not caring," says Peterson, who eventually pulled the bill. "It's a public court ruling that says if you allow one, you allow all."

Watson was advised to place her signs on private property. The school nurse balked.

"Guess who's going to see signs 10 feet off the road?" she said. "No one."

After all, Watson, her retired husband, John Ohnstad, and expert pet trackers are convinced that signs are the most effective way to keep four-legged friends top of mind. Since the signs were posted, Watson has received 75 solid leads on Rudy sightings. She even traveled to upstate New York to check out a Rudy doppelganger.

The couple has spent an exorbitant amount of money, which Watson declined to quantify, hiring two professional pet trackers to find Rudy. One confirmed that he was still alive and roaming around the Fox Run Shopping Center in Bear as late as April.

"I'm a cradle-to-graver," Watson explains. "Their grave or mine. Whatever happens, we stick together."

'One of a kind'

After her 15-year-old dachshund, Gretchen, died of congestive heart failure, Watson swore the dog would never be replaced.

Three weeks later, she drove to a Maryland breeder to find a 2-month-old puppy that nuzzled her shoulder as soon as she took him out of his crate. Skittish around others, Rudy became a lap dog around Donna and her husband. After Watson returned from a brief hospital stay, Rudy went ballistic, protectively latching on to her side.

"I was gone for 48 hours," she recalls. "You would've thought I had been gone for 48 years."

A squat character, Rudy used to pitter-patter around the house with Gretchen's old bone hanging from his mouth. Before he left, he buried the bone under a sofa cushion. It has remained there to this day, says Watson, so Rudy can "find his way home."

On Christmas Day of 2011, Watson and her husband drove to Baltimore to meet the cruise ship that would take them to the Bahamas for a week. It had been a difficult year for them – Watson's mother died, and Donna had a heart attack, along with two surgeries for cancer.

Rudy, then 7 years old and 11 pounds of muscle, was entrusted to Watson's longtime friend, who had watched him previously.

Less than an hour after Rudy got dropped off, the friend called Watson: "Rudy got lost," she said, sheepishly.

The woman, whom Watson declined to identify because they are no longer on speaking terms after 40 years, had accidentally left her back door open as she was trying to secure her back gate. Rudy bolted and was chased across Del. 273 to University Plaza, causing a minor car crash. That's when the friend and other Good Samaritans lost sight of him.

Watson told her husband to turn the car around, forfeiting their $2,600 cruise. They spent their vacation patrolling the area, posting hundreds of flyers and calling area shelters.

At first, Watson expected a positive outcome. Rudy had two collars, but was not microchipped.

"I thought it was a 'Lassie Come Home' scenario," she says.

The couple posted a $2,000 reward, but stopped advertising it after swindlers tried to prey on their vulnerability.

To make matters worse, Internet trolls have harassed the couple by writing "he's dead" and other derogatory remarks on Rudy's Facebook page. One man posted a picture of his hand ripping down a Rudy sign and created an anti-Rudy Facebook page.

In the spring of 2012, after receiving 40 purported Rudy sightings, Watson and her husband brought in the big gun – Karin TarQwyn.

An acclaimed lost dog detective who has been featured on Animal Planet, TarQwyn traveled multiple times from Nebraska to Newark and created a Google map of sightings to try to establish a pattern of behavior for Rudy's adventures. A media frenzy followed.

Still, Rudy has eluded "America's most recognized pet detective," along with stumping Baltimore animal tracker Mary Beth Raven.

Rudy is an extraordinarily cunning and street-savvy dog, according to Raven, who has led more than 2,000 tracks over her career with her Belgian shepherd, Pippin. She charges $50 an hour plus travel expenses, but is out of commission until the fall after injuring her knee during a previous track.

A full-time nurse, Raven trained Pippin with a gauze pad that was saturated with Rudy's scent, after transferring it from Rudy's plastic bone kept in the freezer.

To date, Rudy, a neutered male has covered an area of 40 square miles along the creek bed stretching from Elsmere to Elkton, Maryland, Raven says. He has likely slept in groundhog and fox holes to stay warm during brutal winters and has been captured on video feeding at an area feral cat colony.

In April, a girl on a school bus reportedly spotted Rudy at the Fox Run Shopping Center within 25 feet of a Rudy sign. Raven came out and authenticated the scent.

"I can confirm that he was alive as of April," she says, unequivocally.

On Wednesday, three people reported seeing a red dachshund with long nails and tags in Cecil County, Maryland, prompting a flurry of activity on Rudy's Facebook page.

While reunions happen after this long, both Raven and Delaware Animal Control chief Sherri Warburton say they are incredibly rare.

But absent concrete evidence that Rudy is dead, Watson soldiers on. After Rudy went missing, she became an expert on lost pet hunts, researching on the Internet and completing an online course.

"I saw a need that's not being met by any agency in the state," she explains.

She is often found at local pet events, handing out Rudy flyers, business cards and bumper stickers and has been an active participant in meetings of the state Animal Welfare Task Force. In 2013, the task force proposed creating a statewide lost-and-found pet registry to replace scattered databases and Facebook pages.

The state Office of Animal Welfare plans to develop a central database later this year, office director Hetti Brown said. The site could also include information about low-cost spay and neuter surgeries.

Until then, residents are instructed to report all lost and found dogs to First State Animal Center and SPCA in Camden, which handles animal control throughout the state.

But many pet owners call Watson first.

According to her files, 54 dachshunds have been reunited with their owners as a result of Rudy publicity. Bred to flush out badgers, dachshunds regularly go missing and can run 20 miles an hour.

Such reunions are bittersweet, Watson admits, because her dog is still at large.

Does she feel responsible?

"Every day," she says.

Sympathetic friends encourage the couple, who don't have children, to move on. Watson and her husband have adopted three other red male dachshunds and are fostering a domineering black dachshund named Queen Luna.

While there are no photographs of Rudy displayed in the brick rancher, Donna keeps a wooden sign labeled "Rudy's House" above her family room doorway. A straw dachshund with angel wings and a halo sits in the front picture window, overlooking a jumbo "Still Missing" Rudy sign.

Alternating between elation and depression, Watson characterizes the last few years as "nothing but hell."

She corrects herself when speaking about Rudy in the past tense.

In a plastic baggie, she keeps his new hug-a-dog harness and a double set of tags.

"What do you do when your child goes missing?" she says. "Do you just stop or keep looking for him?"

For pet story ideas and events, contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.

LOST DOG?

Follow these tips from Donna Watson and the state Office of Animal Welfare:

• Immediately put out food, water, your dog's bed or an article of your clothing at the last place your dog was seen.

• Fill out a lost-pet form on the website for First State Animal Center and SPCA, www.fsac-spca.org, and include a picture of the dog. Check the "found section" of the website often. Also, contact local animal shelters and veterinary clinics. Email and fax them the dog's information, including a photo.

• Hang flyers and signs with a picture of the dog and a contact number to get the word out. Go door to door in the neighborhood where the dog was last seen.

• Instruct volunteers not to call or chase the dog. This will prolong your search. If they see the dog, sit or lay down (no eye contact) and gently toss tasty treats to bring the dog closer.

• Post on the lost-and-found section of Craigslist, lost pet websites like FidoFinder.com and the Center for Lost Pets, Facebook pages and newspaper ads.

IS YOUR SIGN LEGAL?

DelDOT is charged with enforcing the law to keep the state's rights-of-way clear from illegal signs.

The agency is instructed to remove any sign posted in the "Clear Zone" (in medians and approximately 10 feet from the edge of the pavement). This includes signs attached to utility poles and anywhere along the roadway. Sign owners can be charged $25 per sign, in addition to a $15 recovery fee.

Exemptions outside the Clear Zone apply to political signs 30 days before and 30 days after an election.

Source: Delaware Department of Transportation