Happy Ending to Rocky's Tale

Have you seen Rocky?

Chances are, if you live in parts of Arlington County and Falls Church, you have. His picture was plastered for weeks on shop windows, bulletin boards and neighborhood Web sites throughout the north Arlington and the Falls Church area. Even a visit to the grocery story might have yielded a glimpse of the 7-year-old Australian cattle dog -- ears perked, eyes glinting, head cocked quizzically to the side.

Rocky went missing Jan. 3, when he got spooked during an early-morning walk and dashed into the darkness. But unlike the hundreds of dogs lost each year, his disappearance triggered a massive, high-tech search among dog lovers in the community.

They were inspired by the tireless efforts of his owner, Ravi Pimplaskar, who updated his blog religiously, kept an online map of Rocky sightings and set up food bowls outfitted with motion-sensor cameras in hopes of catching Rocky nosing around for a bite to eat.

By Feb. 8, when Rocky's saga finally ended, the search had become the talk of the area and an online obsession.

"What got me about this one was that Ravi just kept going and going and going," said Shana High, 30, an environmental planner from Falls Church who had never met Rocky or Pimplaskar. "He did what I would have done, which is to spend time and money and just go to the ends of the Earth for his dog."

When a friend who had been babysitting Rocky broke the news that Rocky had run off, Pimplaskar said, he was devastated. The 34-year-old Ballston resident adopted Rocky seven years ago when the dog was 3 months old. Rocky, a skittish and timid animal with a fondness for cheese, proved a loyal companion. He stuck by Pimplaskar through a divorce, a cross-country move from the San Francisco Bay area, four jobs and six apartments, Pimplaskar said.

"He's been my only stable thing in the last seven years," said Pimplaskar, a marketer for a software company. "There's been a lot of instability in my life, and he's always been by my side. Basically, I feel like it's just him and me."

Pimplaskar printed a stack of posters and mobilized his friends to fan out around the Arlington-Falls Church area. He enlisted the help of the Web site http://www.findtoto.com, which makes robo-calls to neighbors to report a missing pet. When he was home and unable to sleep, he updated his blog, http://helpfindrocky.blogspot.com, with lively but sometimes heart-wrenching posts.

"It hasn't surprised me in the slightest that Rocky has been running full speed in most of his sightings," he wrote Jan. 26. "Rocky actually really only has two speeds -- stop and torpedo." And the next day: "I can't believe the calender is getting close to February which means it'll soon be 1 month since I've last seen my baby. It may well have been the longest month of my life."

Friends, neighbors and strangers from as far away as Maryland responded. They helped Pimplaskar enlist the help of animal trackers and animal "communicators," who tried to divine Rocky's whereabouts. They suggested he put out "feeding stations" equipped with motion-sensor cameras.

They also contributed their time. Through the blog, Pimplaskar organized dozens of volunteers at a moment's notice to jump in their cars and go to where there were sightings, sometimes late at night.