Kudos for Valley response over missing service dog

That the Mat-Su community is filled with generous folks is not breaking news for anyone who has lived here for any length of time.

We see it every holiday season when hundreds of volunteers feed thousands of hungry mouths at the Christmas Friendship Dinner. We see it when the Special Santa program brings holiday cheer to hundreds of local families. We see it when a longtime Valley family battles a debilitating or life-threatening condition.

We help each other; that’s what one local family new to the Valley learned last month. The Reinharts moved to the Mat-Su at Christmastime and were just settling into their new home in Knik when the unexpected happened. Abby, their 18-month-old English bulldog, went missing May 23. It was believed the animal had been stolen from the family’s front yard, and the Reinharts were more devastated June 1 when Abby’s body was found by a neighbor in a nearby lake.

The death of a pet can be hard for any family to handle, but Abby was more than just a pet. She was a trained service dog who gave aid and comfort to 8-year-old Wyatt, a special-needs child who displays autistic tendencies.

Although in a new town in a new state, the Reinharts soon learned they were hardly alone in the Valley. As soon as the Frontiersman learned of the dog’s disappearance, we posted the information on our Facebook page and wrote a story for our print and online editions.

Public response was immediate. Within hours, the story had been shared hundreds of times and people began scouring the area for the dog. April Merchant, president and founder of the nonprofit Midnight Sun Service Dogs that matches families in need with trained service dogs, also contacted the Reinharts.

Merchant uses a service dog herself and said she immediately thought about how she would feel if her dog suddenly disappeared. She reassured the family that if Abby couldn’t be found or returned, Midnight Sun would help.

Unfortunately, Abby was found drowned a little more than a week after her disappearance. The family believes whoever took the purebred dog possibly panicked and ditched her there to avoid being found out. Others say bulldogs as a bred are poor swimmers and the dog could have gone into the water and drowned on her own.

While Wyatt still struggles to grasp what it means that Abby is dead, Merchant and Midnight Sun Service Dogs have wasted no time in starting the ball rolling to train a new best friend for Wyatt. That’s no small task, as training a service dog can take up to two years and costs thousands of dollars.

At Midnight Sun, however, the mission is to pair the dogs with deserving families at no cost to the families. The organization solicits donations from the community to offset training costs. In Wyatt’s case, he’s already had several training sessions with his new service dog, Jack, an 18-month-old Labradoodle who lives in the Valley with his trainer for now.

While saddened by their loss, Wyatt’s mother, Judy Reinhart, was overwhelmed in describing the community’s response to her family’s story. In a strange place surrounded by strangers, the Reinharts learned that all it takes for people in the Mat-Su to help is to hear that a neighbor is hurting.