Here's a horror story you may wish to skip if you don't want to feel bad the rest of the day.

Comet the chihuhua was being boarded while her mommy Renelle Everett was away, in January, 2010. Hoping to find her, he dug his way under the back gate of the kennel, and was gone. He could be just about anywhere around the town of Clayton, North Carolina.

Renelle and her husband took an emergency flight home from their vaction and began the painful process of tackling all the usual methods of trying to find a dog: flyers, notices on Craig's List, missing dog on-line message boards, thousand dollar reward, etc., all to no good outcome.

Comet had been spotted near a senior center ten miles away, but that was as close as she got to her missing dog. It seemed the greatly loved little dog was forever gone.

Then one day she got an anonymous phone call. "I don't want you to worry about your dog. I'm pretty sure I've got him. But I'm going to keep him for my kid."

For months she was haunted by the taunting phone call. Then on a Craigslist discussion board someone began to taunt her anew, either the same man or someone who thought it was funny to act just like the phone caller.

If was impossible to know whether he really had Comet, or was just a random shithead who merely enjoyed tormenting a woman who still cried for missing her dog. In the meantime, Everett has her other two chihuahuas, Dancer and Prancer, to console her. But every day is a worry about where, if, and by whom Comet is being held hostage.