Ricky Klopfenstein was frantic when he didn’t see Molly’s patchy-haired “rat tail” wagging under the crawl space of his house.
It was the last possible place his dog could be.
In minutes, six cars filled with friends were searching his neighborhood for the black cocker spaniel.
That was on Friday — almost a week later, Molly is still missing.
As long as people have owned pets, they’ve had to search for their best friends when they were lost.
Klopfenstein hung 40 fliers in hopes of capturing the attention of the fans who would be going to the South Carolina game the next day.
But he also took his search for Molly into the 21st century.
Klopfenstein made a Web page, www.richardklopfenstein.com/lostblackdog, dedicated to finding her, and he has been encouraging his friends to share the link on their Facebook news feeds.
“There’s a much faster way to reach people than just a sign on the side of the road,” Klopfenstein said.
Being a design-savvy journalism graduate and known by his friends as a “multimedia wiz,” Klopfenstein sais he has used every trick in the book to get his message out.
In large font, “LOST BLACK DOG” is displayed at the top of the page, followed by photos of Molly, a video of her playing at the Reitz Union Amphitheater and a Google map image with a marker indicating the last place she was seen — the corner of University Avenue and 25th Street.
He pleads on the page for the community to help “a fellow Gator.”
“It’s the most devastating thing that can happen to him,” said his roommate, Katie LeBlanc. “Molly is like a family member to Ricky. She meant the world to him.”
So far, 152 people shared Klopfenstein’s page on Facebook, and he’s hoping it becomes viral.
Klopfenstein, who turned 24 on Wednesday, would normally be annoyed by the scratching sound Molly makes from outside his back door at 2 a.m., but now he says it would be the best birthday present he could ever get.
“We’re getting to a week where she hasn’t had a dedicated source of food or water, and she’s a scrapper — she eats garbage, but I don’t know how [she] fares in the wild,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult when it comes time to go home for Thanksgiving. There goes another six days.”
He asks anyone who sees Molly to hold onto her and call him at 407-765-8891 or send him an e-mail at yogo54@gmail.com.
