Doggone Gallup!
Woman's move to area results in lost pooches

Aminah Carroll plays with her seven dogs outside of her home near Zuni on Monday afternoon. Two of Aminah's dogs went missing on March 17, Daisy and Zeke which are a pure bred beagel and a pure bred coon hound. Aminah is giving a reward for the safe return of her dogs. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Aminah Carroll is spending a lot of her non-working hours traveling the dirt roads south of Gallup looking for her two pure-breeds that have been missing for almost a month now.

One is a 13-year-old coon hound and the other is a 5-year-old beagle. Both are trained hunting dogs.

This really isn't a story about lost dogs, but about the problems one can encounter moving to Gallup with a number of dogs and a desire to provide a decent home for the dogs.

Carroll first came to this area six years ago, fell in love with the beauty of the terrain and decided that one day she would come back here to live.

A trained social worker with a love of all animals (she also has cows, horses and a cat or two), she got that chance earlier this year when she lost her state job in West Virginia when she became a whistle-blower.

Politics in West Virginia being what they are, no one wanted to hire a whistle blower and when Carroll heard of a job opening up as director of the Zuni Tribe's social services program, she jumped at the chance to bring herself and her animals here.

Welcome wagon
But her dream slowly became a nightmare.

Putting down her last $850 on a rental here in Gallup, she and her dogs found themselves living in a house that was barely habitable only one electrical socket worked, the plumbing mostly leaked and then there was the smell.

It turned out that the smell came from leaking gas and Carroll said she and her dogs were almost gassed to death.

If this wasn't enough, Carroll soon discovered that the kid on the corner just hanging around wasn't just hanging around he was the local drug dealer.

All of this was enough to make her realize that she and her animals needed to find a new home although she realized that finding someone who would rent a home to a woman with nine dogs would not be easy.

Another problem she had was a lack of money; so she went to Gallup's mayor, Bob Rosebrough, who is also an attorney and he said he couldn't take the case because he had represented her landlord at one point or another.

But he sent her to Ben Welch to see if the city's ombudsman could do something to help her out.

It turned out that the landlord had been receiving complaints about her from the neighbors who weren't all that happy about the dogs; so Welch was able to make an agreement whereby she would get her entire $850 back.

But before she received her money, the landlord backed down because of her decision soon after moving in to relay her suspicions about the boy on the corner to a local FBI agent. Nothing came of it but the landlord apparently disliked whistleblowers as much as the people in West Virginia.

Zuni bound
So here she was nine dogs, a cat or two, no home, no money and a job in Zuni.

Luckily, she found a house for rent about midway between Gallup and Zuni on State Road 602 and even better yet, her new landlord said he would wait for his first month's rent until she started getting paid.

This is where the lost dogs come in.

The new house has a big yard but lacked a fence to keep her dogs from roaming. One of her dogs was killed in the first two days at the new home when he ran into traffic on the road.

On March 17, three of her dogs decided to go exploring and Carroll said she saw them headed up the road toward Gallup. One of the dogs came back a little while later but she hasn't seen the other two Daisy and Zeke since then.

"They're hunting dogs," she said, "They can travel 12 miles a day without any trouble."

So she put signs up around the trading posts in that area, offering a reward and got a couple of calls, one from a lady who saw the three dogs just after they left her property and at that time, they were headed toward Gallup.

How bizarre
She also got another call which she said ended up in a weird experience.

The caller a man said he saw the two dogs in the area west of Mentmore and offered to take her to where he saw them.

She went to his place of employment with one of her dogs in her car, and when the guy came out, he told her he would travel with her so he could show her where he saw the dogs.

"When he opened the door, he wasn't happy to see my dog," Carroll said.

And Carroll was starting to get suspicious when she saw him put on leather gloves before touching her car, even though it was hot outside.

She said she became even more suspicious when he wanted her to drive back on the dirt roads west of Mentmore into area where there was little if any car traffic.

She even became more concerned when he put his hand in his pockets and started to pull something out. "Was this my worst nightmare being played out?" she wondered.

It turned out that all he was bringing out was a pair of binoculars but he then suggested that they go down into the ravines where he saw he saw the dogs and look around for them.

"I asked him what he was doing in the ravines and at first he didn't respond," Carroll said. But then he told her that his parents lived nearby and he was out walking.

This was enough for her; so she said she quietly removed a .32 caliber pistol she had stashed under her seat and put it in her purse and made sure that the gun was noticeable. She then told the man that she was heading back. "I left my scent here and if the dogs are here, they will notice it and stay. I'll come back later and look around."

That was the closest she has come to finding her dogs.

"I suspect that someone has found them and has decided to keep them," she said.

If that's the case and the new family plans to keep good care of them, she said she's willing to give up the hunt.

"But I want to be sure that the two are safe and happy," she said, "which is why I am asking that if the two were taken in, I want to know that they will be well cared for. The two mean more to me than anything I have."

Persons who have seen the dogs or know where they are can contact Carroll at her work phone (505) 782-7166 or on her cell (879-9812).