TWA Keeps Looking for Loekie : Tourist Vows to Fast Until Dog Found

It has been 20 years since Dutch tourist Leo Koewe last visited the Los Angeles area, taking in sights like Disneyland and Hollywood.

Upon his return, the 50-year-old singer-composer has seen none of the Southland’s famous tourist spots. Instead, he has planted himself beside a friend’s telephone in Huntington Beach for four straight days, waiting anxiously for a call that he has hoped and prayed would let him know that his beloved dog, Loekie, is all right.

A distraught Koewe on Sunday vowed to start a fast today at the Trans World Airlines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport until Loekie is returned.

“I want to stay there, just to drink (water), until I have my dog back,” Koewe said.

The dog has been missing since Koewe, from The Hague, the Netherlands, put the frightened animal in a cage and boarded it on his Trans World Airlines flight Thursday from Dallas to Los Angeles, with a plane switch in St. Louis. Koewe was traveling from a Christmastime visit with his sister in the Dallas area to the friend’s home in Huntington Beach.

Koewe arrived in Los Angeles, only to discover that Loekie had not. A distraught Koewe said he and his dog have spent only one night apart since he acquired Loekie as a pup four years ago.

“I have a feeling that my dog is so far OK and is alive,” Koewe said in halting English. “But I pray to God that wherever she is and if she is alive, I will not get back a ruined dog, mentally. She hated to go in that cage.”

A TWA representative said Sunday that the airline is working vigorously to find the lost dog, which is black, weighs about 10 pounds and is a mixture of terrier and poodle.

“We continue to look at all stations on the possibility that the dog was routed to another location,” said Don Morrison, vice president for public affairs at TWA headquarters in St. Louis. “This is highly unusual. I don’t remember the last time a dog didn’t show up, and we just don’t know what happened.”

Koewe said he is unhappy with his treatment by TWA officials.

“Three hours ago, they said they would call me in five minutes,” Koewe said. “But nobody has called me. Nobody from TWA is calling me themselves to tell me they are sorry, that they are trying to find my dog and that they are doing their best.”

Morrison, however, said airline officials are doing everything they can to find the dog. If they are unsuccessful, Morrison said, TWA will provide Koewe “the normal” financial compensation for a lost pet.