Corgi caper comes to happy ending

    A homeless man faces possible third-degree felony theft charges after Price police referred a case of suspected dog-napping to the Carbon County Attorney’s Office this week.
    Price resident Clint Motte discovered his 2-year-old Cardigan Welsh corgi named Cali missing from the backyard of his East Fausett Circle home on Dec. 30.  He searched for the dog for a few days to no avail.  
    It wasn’t until Motte’s sister, Paige Dimick, posted a Jan. 2 plea for help on social media that the case of the missing corgi crystallized.
    Two women contacted Dimick on Facebook alleging they’d seen the dog in the company of two men. One woman identified the suspected dognapper as a former in-law, Dimick said. The other woman, after being shown a photo of the man, confirmed that he was one of the men she saw with the dog.
    Dimick said once she learned the identity of the suspect, she contacted him through his Facebook page.
    She said she was surprised he responded. Dimick said she believes he did so only after she told him there was a substantial reward offered for the dog’s return.
    “I said hey, the dog you have possibly has a very nice reward,” she said. “I asked him to send me a picture of the dog and he said no, that other people were trying to scam him out of the dog.
    “In my opinion, I think he was probably going to sell her.”
    Dimick’s reward ruse almost backfired when she offered to meet the man anywhere to pick up the dog and give him the reward. At first, he told her he was in Salt Lake City. When she offered to come pick up Cali there, he became suspicious.  
    However, in a twist of fate, the man confessed to his true location.
     “He confessed he was really in Grand Junction,” she said. “He asked me two or three times about the reward. He didn’t know it, but he wasn’t getting anything.”
     Once Dimick identified the suspect and confirmed his location, she told her brother, who contacted police in Price and Grand Junction before heading to Colorado to retrieve his beloved dog.  
    Motte said police in Grand Junction were able to facilitate Cali’s return without his having to come face to face with the suspected dognapper.
     When contacted by the Sun Advocate, Motte was adamant he did not want the suspect named in this story. Price police also did not name the suspect in a Monday press release since he had not yet been charged.
     The Sun Advocate has confirmed the identity of the man but is withholding his name pending criminal charges.
    It was unclear Wednesday whether Carbon County prosecutors had decided yet to bring charges against the man.
     Motte said he does not wish to press charges.   
    He admitted he wasn’t 100 percent sure how the homeless man got ahold of Cali—did he grab her from the backyard, or did the dog wander off and into the man’s clutches?
     Regardless, Motte said the man was clearly up to no good.
     “Even if he didn’t (take her), he didn’t do the right thing (by keeping her),” Motte said.
Cali’s owner hopes the man gets his life in order following this ordeal.
“He’s been in a lot of trouble here. He has kids. I hope he takes this opportunity to straighten up,” he said.
As for Cali, Motte says she seems to be in good spirits after a week away from home, though at times she seems a little skittish when she’s alone with him.
Motte said he bought Cali from a breeder in Redding, Calif. in August 2015. He got her because he’d lost a cherished corgi to disease earlier that year. Cali comes from championship stock, he said.
Motte said he can only imagine what Cali must have experienced during her week with the homeless man.
“He can’t take care of himself. How was he going to take care of Cali?” he wondered.