She was his constant companion, the smile when he came home, the sympathetic ear. She may even have been his savior.
Now, he frets, and prays, and remembers happier times when they were a couple: Craig Touchet and Baby Girl.
Baby Girl is a dog; Touchet, her human. She broke up a robbery on Christmas morning, jumping between her master and an armed man. In the tumult, the assailant fired his gun, missing Touchet, but Baby Girl bolted. She’s been at large since.
She’s been the talk of Facebook users, the face on hundreds of signs and the object of intense searches on the Southside involving nationally known dog trackers. She’s been sighted, too.
But the place in Touchet’s truck where Baby Girl rode is empty.
“She’s my dog, you know?” Touchet said. “She was my buddy, my companion.”
She’s a wiggly reminder of better times. Touchet, 56, recalls the day, six years ago, when they met. The owner of a demolition company, he’d unlocked a trailer at a storage site in east Atlanta where his crews took surplus concrete from wrecking jobs. A couple of employees told him they’d heard something in the kudzu ringing the site. Maybe a puppy?
Well, replied the boss, go look.
They came back with a little brown bundle of life, cold and hungry, two big eyes atop a white splash of fur on the chest. One of the guys took it home, only to bring it back the next morning. He’d violated that cardinal rule: Thou shalt check with the wife before bringing home a puppy. The little creature was Touchet’s.
A vet decided she was a Labrador-pit bull mix. The puppy could fit in his hand, so Touchet named her Baby Girl. “I never knew she’d grow to be 85 or 90 pounds,” he said.
Baby Girl was his shadow. When he drove to a job, she’d hop out of his truck and snuffle about. When work took him to Midtown, Touchet stopped at The Varsity and ordered a couple of “naked dogs,” the drive-in’s name for a plain hot dog. Those were Baby Girl’s. “She wouldn’t let me eat until she ate,” he said.
That routine came to an end with the Great Recession. When building slowed, so did the demand for demolition jobs. Touchet eventually closed his business, then lost his Paulding County home.
In the past year, with the economy improving, Touchet found work helping an Atlanta church prepare a tract for an athletic field. He moved into a hotel in College Park to be near the job. His wife was tending to elderly parents in Florida, so it was just Touchet and Baby Girl.
The hotel was quiet early Christmas morning when Baby Girl’s barking woke him. Touchet shook his head, noticed he’d left the TV on — it was a bad habit — then heard knocking on the door. He pushed the room curtain aside. A young woman stood outside.
“Please let me in!” she said. “I’m scared! Please!”
Touchet unbolted the door. He opened it an inch —
And a man broke in. He had a handgun. He pointed it at Touchet’s face. “Where’s your wallet?” he demanded.
Baby Girl jumped. She ran between the men, barking. Touchet backpedaled, gaining enough room to push his assailant. The man staggered back. Boom! The gun went off. It was the loudest sound in the world. The bullet — police would later identify it as a .40-caliber slug — blew a hole in the closet wall. The would-be robber ran. Touchet sprinted to the door and slammed it shut. Moments later, his ears ringing from the weapon’s report, he peered out. Everything was still.
And Baby Girl was gone. She fled when the gun went off.
Word spread about the dog that foiled a robbery. Friends and family started a Facebook site, Help Us Find Our Baby Girl, featuring photos of the lost dog. Word reached Lost Pet Professionals, a Nebraska-based company famed for finding lost dogs. It dispatched Jordina Thorp Ghiggeri, who drove two days from her home in central New Jersey. Over several days, her three search dogs tracked Baby Girl’s scent to a site in Riverdale.
Volunteers also posted about 300 signs featuring Baby Girl and a number to call. The Touchets’ phone started ringing. I saw your dog in a parking lot. I saw Baby Girl behind a building. A dog looking a lot like yours was in the woods behind my house.
The calls, Ghiggeri said, weren’t all accurate; a lot of stray dogs are brown. But some were bona fide. She’s left food and humane traps at the site where the dog was seen. “As of right now, we have a good plan in place,” she said. She believes Baby Girl will be found.
Touchet, meantime, has moved to a Riverdale hotel to be closer to where his dog has been sighted. The hotel costs more, and he’s already spent a lot of money in the search for his dog. But what choice does he have? Baby Girl may have saved his life.
“I say a prayer every day, thanking God I’m alive,” he said.
Touchet also ends every prayer with a small request:
Please, God, bring back Baby Girl.
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