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Finn finds a home

By Liz Farrell

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Finn was sent to the Chatham County jail last fall.

For four weeks, he and his cellmate bonded over their personal quests for self-improvement.

Finn, being new to the system, needed immediate help. Mostly because of some social issues that had been holding him back.

With the help of his cellmate, he quickly learned how to identify a friendly stranger and how to walk through a crowd without panicking.

He even learned the right way to accept affection.

Most of all, though, Finn’s time in jail gave him much-needed experience around new people — who, as it turns out, can be peaceful and kind and a source of unlimited treats.

This was news to him.

When Finn, a Labrador and border collie mix who was about 2 at the time, came to the Humane Society for Greater Savannah in early September 2015, he showed signs of fearfulness, something that indicated a lack of socialization or neglect, maybe even abuse.

No one at the shelter knew his complete backstory, though.

They didn’t need to. They could see it.

The black-and-white dog — the kind that looks as though he were created solely for compliments and cuddling — was so withdrawn that he’d cower in a corner and urinate on himself.

To fix this, the shelter enrolled him in Operation New Hope, a program created in 2011 through a partnership with the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office that matches low-risk inmates with dogs that need a little help in becoming adoptable.

Finn was part of the program’s 37th class and one of eight males who graduated Oct. 10.

It was on that humid day he went from Operation New Hope to Isle of Hope, a wealthy neighborhood just eight miles from the center of downtown Savannah, an island that becomes so only during high tide on the Skidaway River.

Rick and Missy Staie (Submitted photo)

Finn had a new family there, Rick and Missy Staie, a dog sister Gracie, Gracie’s pal Mozart the cat, and Beethoven, who soon became Finn’s feline buddy.

“He was just a pretty boy,” Missy Staie said about what drew the couple to Finn. “He was very sweet and very mild-tempered.”

And, as mentioned, he liked cats.

The Staies’ dog Nikki had died nearly a year earlier, and they wanted the time to mourn her before taking on a new pet and to only do so when they had time to devote to the new animal.

The couple — and their menagerie — immediately bonded with Finn and he with them, but the dog was timid around strangers.

“He had come a long way,” Missy Staie said of those first few months. “He wouldn’t get in a car when he first came home. He didn’t like to be on the leash.”

Little things like that, she said, soon became a nonissue.

Gracie also helped Finn get the routine down, something Nikki had done for her when she came home from the same shelter years earlier.

Finn followed Gracie’s cue — and also her.

The two had a great time napping together, playing fetch and tug-of-war, and riding on the Staies’ boat. Both dogs also really liked the beach, which is where Finn was on the day everything changed.

. . .

Finn, right, runs toward Bandit, a dog owned by Rick and Missy Staie's neighbor Anna Belue, at Burkes Beach on Hilton Head Island on Dec. 29. Hours later, Finn went missing in Old Town Bluffton. (Anna Belue/Submitted photo)

Missy Staie and her friend Anna Belue, who is also her next-door neighbor, went to Burkes Beach on Hilton Head Island on the morning of Dec. 29.

Belue was excited for their day-trip because her 10-year-old long-haired Dachshund, a boy named Bandit, had never been to the beach before and she knew he would love it.

“I am such a beach person,” Belue said, but the ones near her in Georgia don’t have Hilton Head’s much-enjoyed dog-friendly policies.

It was unseasonably warm that day. Staie and Belue took the dogs off-leash, chatted and threw some balls around for an hour. When the dogs were sufficiently worn out from running and splashing, they hosed them down at the beach entrance and loaded them into the car again.

Then they headed off-island to have some lunch in Old Town Bluffton.

“We had such a good day,” Belue said. “For that to happen at the end …”

For months after, Belue didn’t talk to Staie about how special that morning was to her.

“In fact,” she said in August, “I only just now blew up one of the pictures of Bandit from that day.”

The two women and three sleepy dogs settled in for lunch at an outdoor picnic table on the patio of Fat Patties, a burger restaurant, on Bluffton Road.

Belue put Bandit in a toddler high chair that was at the end of their table and snapped a cute picture of him before tying his leash around her leg and letting him sleep beneath the table with Gracie and Finn, whose leashes were tied to the high chair.

Just as the food arrived, two loud teenagers walked by.

Finn woke up.

And Finn bolted.

He took the high chair with him for a bit before his retractable leash untangled from it and set him free.

He ran through the restaurant’s patio and stopped at the edge, right where the bar area meets the parking lot.

“He turned around and he looked,” Belue said. “Missy got up and other people got up. He kind of turned over a few things. At that time, that’s when he ran away. Missy took out after him.”

Belue sat at the restaurant for a long time afterward. She answered questions from other patrons who wanted to know what had happened. She passed out cards with her number on it to two couples who, though strangers, went out to help Staie search for Finn.

Staie had left behind her phone, her purse, everything, so Belue had the food boxed up, paid the tab and put Gracie and Bandit in Staie’s car, with the air-conditioning on.

She waited some more.

“A few people told me about a wreck that had happened,” Belue said. “Some people thought Finn had gotten hit by a car. Other people said, no, they don’t think that and that they were going to go look.”

It was about two hours before she saw Staie again.

And when she did, there was no Finn.