Remains Found—

Sad Ending For A Missing Greyhound

By Nancy K. Crevier

“Not knowing was hard, and now we have closure, just not the closure we were hoping for,” Kara Pansa said ON Monday, February 2.

On Saturday, January 31, neighbors found the remains of Elwood, the 6-year old greyhound owned by Kara and Greg Pansa, that had been missing since December 23. The missing dog had triggered a massive search throughout Newtown and into Monroe when he disappeared from his Turkey Hill Road yard Christmas week.

Greyhounds are single-coated dogs with a very low body fat ratio, and unable to withstand cold winter temperatures for any extended period of time, so searchers were focused on finding the lost animal as soon as possible.

Volunteers from Newtown, as well as from Greyhound Rescue and Rehabilitation (GRR) out of Cross River, N.Y., We Adopt Greyhounds (WAG), and Connecticut Greyhound Adopt were saddened to hear that the five and a half week search had not ended happily.

“We are all pretty devastated by the news, but at least he is not in any more pain and there is some kind of closure,” said Dawn Adams, a Newtown resident involved in the search and an active member of GRR.

Christine Johnson, director of GRR, said in a statement issued to volunteers on Saturday afternoon that Elwood’s remains had been found “within 100 yards from home in woods that were walked and walked and walked.”

Where Elwood was for the month prior to the last sightings near Toddy Hill Road on January 20 will always remain a mystery. It could be that he had been taken in by someone, or that he had sheltered in an abandoned barn or shed, said Ms Johnson.

“We can speculate till the cows come home, but I personally walked the area where he was finally found just two weeks after Elwood was gone, and he was definitely not there at that time,” she said. She suspects the dog somehow found his way back to his home area and succumbed during the last large snowstorm.

“It’s a devastating loss to me,” said Ms Johnson, who had fostered Elwood when GRR originally received him into care. “I had him first, I held him first, and I loved him first,” she said. “Our organization has been in business for ten years, and this is the first time we have ever lost [a missing greyhound].”

Kara and Greg Pansa and their two sons, Steven and Jason, grieved this week.

“This is very hard for our family,” said Ms Pansa. “We just want to offer thanks to all. Thank you to the local businesses for putting up the flyers and thanks to the resident of Newtown for all of their support. We kept hoping he would come back, but now we have to deal with the reality.”