Vegas dog tale has a happy ending

Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006 | 7:59 a.m.

Although his movie career to date has been limited to bit parts, Sumo the acting dog starred in a real-life adventure that had a happy ending Friday when he was safely reunited with his Las Vegas owner after a week-long disappearance.

The story -- let's call it, with apologies to Lassie, "Sumo Came Home" -- even had an improbable Hollywood finale, with its climax coming on Friday the Thirteenth.

Sumo, a 6-year-old Shih Tzu owned by Las Vegas actress Lindsey Labrum, had gone missing Jan. 6 when Labrum's grandmother had taken him to a pet grooming salon to get a Mohawk haircut for an upcoming role in the vampire movie "Before Sunrise."

An apparent miscommunication between the grandmother and the salon clerk resulted in Sumo being left unattended in the lobby, from which he somehow escaped.

Late Friday, after a week of plastering Southeast Las Vegas neighborhoods with three different fliers -- the last on Thursday offering a $1,000 reward -- Labrum got the phone call for which she had been hoping.

Sumo, it turns out, had been found about 100 yards from the salon at Tropicana Avenue and Sandhill Road by a mechanic of a business in the area. The dog was found less than two hours after he went missing and apparently spent a week in the man's garage before being reunited with Labrum Friday night.

"I was so happy because I had been going insane wondering if Sumo had been hit by a car or was OK," Labrum, 26, said Saturday. "It was an emotional ordeal -- horribly emotional."

After Sumo's disappearance had been reported by the Sun and a local TV station -- and on the Web site of the rock band World Without Sundays, which had featured Sumo in one of its music videos -- Labrum received a number of phone calls of potential sitings and from well-wishers.

She also, however, got her share of crank calls, some seemingly inspired by Sumo's film credits.

In "Potheads, The Movie," Sumo portrays the pet of a drug dealer and meets an untimely end by being hit by a car driven by a group of teens high on marijuana -- a story line that may have prompted one caller to tell Labrum that Sumo had been "hit by a car on Tropicana Avenue today and cut in two." She also received a collect call from an inmate at the Clark County Detention Center who claimed to have Sumo.

"Still, everything worked out for the best and I have him back," Labrum said. "I'm so grateful to everyone who helped to reunite us."

Labrum got Sumo in 1999 shortly after she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which now is in remission. She credits the dog with helping her get through that difficult period. Sumo has since appeared with Labrum in two movies.

Labrum paid the man who had found Sumo the $1,000 reward. His name was not released.

But this tale has another twist that has left Labrum trying to find the owner of another cream-colored Shih Tzu found wandering the streets of a neighborhood near University Medical Center.

"A woman had called me saying she had found Sumo, but when we went to see it, it was not Sumo," Labrum said. "It was a female Shih Tzu with tan markings."

The woman turned the dog over to the Lied Animal Foundation shelter. Each day, Labrum visited the facility, which serves as the city and county pound, to check whether anyone had turned in Sumo. When she saw the female Shih Tzu in a cage, she decided to adopt her and attempt to find the true owner.

"I know the heartache I went through and I know what the family of this little dog must be going through," said Labrum, who is calling the dog Varuka.

Varuka's owner can call Labrum's mother, Randi Miller, at (702) 454-3100 or (702) 274-1315 to provide details of the dog and reclaim her. If the owner cannot be located, Labrum said she has found a good companion for Sumo.

Cue the music. That's a wrap.

Ed Koch can be reached at 259-4090 or at koch@lasvegassun.com.