Precious Is Tucson Bound : Dog Odyssey Has Happy Ending: A Flight Home

When a glamorous and well-traveled passenger boards Flight 702 to Tucson tonight, the attendants may well ask, “coffee, tea or Milk Bone?”

Precious, a year-old Irish setter, has a reservation to fly home from Los Angeles after a 450-mile journey that ended in Norco, a Riverside County city where horses are generally considered top dog. But no one is quite sure how Precious got from there to here.

“It definitely didn’t walk across the desert,” said Mickey Kulick, Norco’s chief animal control officer. “Her feet were in pretty good shape. . . . It didn’t look like she was doing a lot of walking.”

“We figure she must have gotten into a truck somehow,” he said after putting the collar on Precious. Kulick suggested that someone may have picked Precious “up off the street . . . and the dog somehow got loose again.”

Tags Traced to Tucson

Authorities in Norco traced Precious’ tags back to Tucson and contacted her owners, Joe and Tina Haro. It turned out that Precious had been AWOL for a dog’s age.

“They were shocked to find out the dog was here,” said Belvia Emerson, president of the Corona-Norco People for Animal Welfare Society, known locally as PAWS. “They hadn’t even heard of Corona or Norco. . . .”

Precious had tunneled to freedom back in January, and the Haro children, ages 9, 13, and 17, “were just dying to know when their dog is coming back,” Emerson said.

Although the Haros were relieved to hear that Precious was alive and healthy, they feared they couldn’t afford to bring the pooch home. “It was impossible for us to go get her,” Tina Haro said. “We just didn’t have the money. I just asked them to promise me they would find a good home for her.”

PAWS, determined to get Precious back home, was ready to buy the dog a ticket when Western Airlines volunteered to carry her free.

“It’s just a good-will gesture,” said Linda Dozier, the airline’s director of public relations. “It seems like the humane thing to do.”

Tightened Security

When Precious arrives home tonight, she may find that backyard security has been tightened. She already had earned a reputation as an adventurer by digging her way out of the Haros’ yard just a couple of weeks after Frank (Paco) Haro, 13, gave his father Precious as a gift for Christmas.

That vacation was brief, as Precious apparently decided to tour locally instead of crossing state lines.

When Precious burrowed under the chain-link fence a second time, late in January, the family’s other dog also fled the backyard. “We’ve really lost hope (because) he didn’t have any tags,” Tina Haro said.