Owner heartbroken after dog vanishes from Collier DAS

NAPLES, Fla.- Mimi Ramirez is crushed after her 9-year-old Chihuahua, Squeaky, escaped from Collier County Domestic Animal Services over the weekend.

“They had her, it was their responsibility.”

Ramirez left Squeaky with her sister on Friday while she went out of town and the dog ran off. A good Samaritan later found the dog and took her to the shelter.

When Ramirez’s sister went to get the dog, workers told her Squeaky had to stay with them until Monday so she could be spayed and micro-chipped, but that never happened.

“One of the inmates from the inmate work program had opened the cage and the dog fled,” said Daniel Christenbury, Collier County DAS spokesperson.

Christenbury says they’ve been searching everywhere for the dog, setting up three traps with Squeaky’s belongings nearby and even contacting neighboring communities to help search.

Ramirez spent all day Monday looking for Squeaky too,
wondering how the agency responsible for the welfare of animals can lose a dog.

“That faith that I’ve had in them is gone,” Ramirez said. “It scares me to even think she’s out there ’cause she’s never been by herself. To me she’s everything.”