{"id":3912,"date":"2023-03-30T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=3912"},"modified":"2023-03-30T12:19:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T16:19:03","slug":"lost-dog-gone-manifestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/lost-dog-gone-manifestation\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog-Gone Manifestation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local girl writes essay about a lost dog just weeks before losing her dog<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Aubrey Ann Parker
Current Editor<\/strong>

Jamison Rae Roethler (9), a fourth-grader at Frankfort Elementary School, is a storyteller. And a dog-lover. And I should know\u2014like recognizes like.\u00a0

On the day that I interviewed Jamison and her mother, Beth Roethler (42)\u2014notably a second grade teacher at Frankfort and co-owner of The Cabbage Shed\u2014she had just received a \u201cPanther Pride\u201d bracelet from her school.

\u201cBecause I write a lot,\u201d Jamison explained to me. \u201cWe do journal entries, and I do very good stories. Sometimes I type my stories, but not a lot.\u201d

However, until recently, Jamison had never taken part in a writing competition.\u00a0

Knowing that her daughter enjoys writing, Beth Roethler asked if Jamison wanted to participate in the annual essay contest that has been put on by Stormcloud Brewing Company since 2014.\u00a0

Stormcloud co-owner and brewmaster Brian Confer (55) came up with the idea for the essay contest nearly a decade ago and enlisted the help of a few literary locals to serve as judges. (Full Disclosure:<\/strong> The Betsie Current<\/em>\u2019s co-owner Jordan Bates has served as judge of the anonymous competition every year since its inception, including this year. Bates has also sporadically been employed by Stormcloud to clean kegs, though you would not have called it his \u201cday job.\u201d)\u00a0

\u201cMany Stormcloud beers have names with a story behind them. Sometimes I will share the story, while others are kept secret,\u201d Confer told The Betsie Current<\/em>. \u201cI thought it would be fun to have people submit essays with their own stories behind the beer names.\u201d\u00a0

From 2014 to 2018, the first five years of the contest were about \u201cGerald\u2019s Talking Dog,\u201d a cherry-rye dubbel. The first line of every essay had to begin with \u201cGerald\u2019s Talking Dog loves cherries. That\u2019s all he talks about\u2026\u201d but the rest was left up to the creative genius of the writer\u2014to spin the \u201ctail\u201d in 500 words or less.

In 2020, things changed a bit\u2014the first line of every essay had to begin with \u201cIt was a long way to shore\u2026\u201d in honor of \u201cThe Farthest Shore,\u201d a Belgian strong dark ale. The contest took a hiatus in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The last two years, though, every essay had to begin with, \u201cIt was a dark and stormy night\u2026\u201d Submissions were due on Monday, February 27, and this year\u2019s panel of judges met on Monday, March 6, to compile their favorites. The winners would be announced during a public reading of the top four essays on Saturday, March 11.

\u201cI got my idea from the movie \u2018Dog Gone\u2019 [on Netflix], which we had watched two days before we wrote this,\u201d Jamison told me. \u201cAfter we had watched the movie, my mom mentioned there was a contest going on at Stormcloud for a writing competition. I thought we should write a story about a dog going missing. We were thinking maybe we should base it on our town\u2014everyone searching and helping. We got out her computer on February 14, and I came up with some ideas. My mom helped me to type it up.\u201d

Jamison\u2019s mother, Beth, added:

\u201cShe cried for an hour and a half when we watched \u2018Dog Gone.\u2019 In that movie, a lot of people help them. It\u2019s got Rob Lowe in it, and it\u2019s really good. But you will cry.\u201d\u00a0

The mother-daughter duo submitted their entry the next day, on Wednesday, February 15. In the story, a 10-year-old girl\u2019s dog has gone missing, so she and her mother recruit the townsfolk to help in the search during a \u201cdark and stormy\u201d night. Readers will recognize local places and people\u2014notably \u201cRick,\u201d the brewery owner [like Frankfort\u2019s very own Rick Schmitt, co-owner of Stormcloud] and \u201cFrannie,\u201d a shop owner [like Frankfort\u2019s very own Frances \u201cFrannie\u201d Olivares Elbaz, co-owner of Anet & Ollies and Frannie\u2019s Follies, two local shops]. Ultimately, the little girl is reunited with her pup after \u201cRick\u201d finds the dog on the beach. (The full essay can be read here<\/a>, with a few minor changes made by The Betsie Current<\/em>\u2019s editor, Aubrey Ann Parker.)

As the Roethlers were waiting to hear how Jamison\u2019s story went over with the essay contest\u2019s judges, they had cause to wonder if she was beginning to show clairvoyant powers.

Two weeks after Jamison had dictated the fictional story to her mother, Dottie\u2014the family\u2019s two-year-old American Bulldog\u2014went missing on Tuesday, February 28. They believe that she might have chased a deer after playing in the backyard of their home near M-115, just outside of Frankfort.\u00a0

\u201cIt started with us just searching around the house, just where she would normally wander off to,\u201d Jamison said. \u201cThen it started to turn into a big thing. We had probably 30 people looking for her.\u201d

After recruiting friends to help in the search that first evening\u2014to no avail\u2014the Roethlers put Dottie\u2019s kennel on their back porch around 8:30 p.m. in hopes that she would come home while everyone was sleeping.

However, the next morning, Dottie still had not come home.\u00a0

Beth Roethler had put up a Facebook post about their missing pooch, and it received more than 100 \u201clikes,\u201d nearly 100 \u201cshares,\u201d and more than 50 \u201ccomments.\u201d Just like in Jamison\u2019s story, friends were offering to help look, and Beth says that more than 30 families helped to look for Dottie, who was missing for a total of 16 hours, including that first night spent all alone outside.

Ultimately, though\u2014just as in Jamison\u2019s essay\u2014Dottie was found and reunited with her family.

\u201cOne of our friends [J.D. Kittleson, 43] tracked her footprints into the woods across from our house,\u201d said Jamison, whose father, Tony (46), was able to find Dottie based on those footprints. \u201cShe must have been sitting there quietly, because [Kittleson] went right up to where she was but didn\u2019t see her. When we found her later, she was underneath a pine tree, and it looked like she had been there for a while.\u201d

(Notably: J.D. Kittleson is married to Melissa \u201cMissy\u201d Kittleson, who is the other 2nd grade teacher with Beth Roethler at Frankfort.)

Dottie was then taken to the veterinarian to get checked out; she was hobbling a little bit, because she had cut the inside of the pads of her paws and she had frostbite on them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jamison
Jamison Rae Roether (9, top) and her sister, Emerson (8), who is hugging the family\u2019s six-year-old American Bulldog, The Dude (brown), and two-year-old American Bulldog, Dottie (white), at around 10 a.m. on March 1 after she had been missing for 16 hours. Photo courtesy of the Roethler family.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Jamison\u2014who turns 10 years old in just a few weeks\u2014how the ordeal had made her feel, considering it was so much like the story she had written about a 10-year-old girl and her lost dog just a few weeks before, she replied:

\u201cThe day that she went missing was actually her \u2018gotcha\u2019 day, and she did almost this same thing the day that we got her, but we found her before it turned night that time. I was thinking, \u2018Wow, this is kinda like the story I wrote.\u2019 And I wished I knew what she was thinking. I was kinda scared. I felt very loved, though, because everyone around the community was looking for her and helping us out. Everyone went searching for her.\u201d

About a week after Dottie came home, Jamison got the news that she had received second place in the 2023 Stormcloud Essay Contest for her story about \u201cAmelia\u201d and her lost dog, \u201cYooper.\u201d Sadly, she was out of town\u2014in Florida, with her father, Tony, visiting her grandmother\u2014during the public reading on Saturday, March 11, at Stormcloud. 

\u201cMs. Kaitlyn read her story,\u201d Beth Roethler explained. Kaitlyn Matesich (31) is in charge of youth services at Benzie Shores District Library and works in partnership with Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools; she is also notably a former Stormcloud employee.

This was Jamison\u2019s first time being in a writing competition, but it likely will not be her last. 

\u201cI felt happy and very excited, because I hadn\u2019t done it ever before and I got second place,\u201d she said. 

Again, being a dog-person and a writer, I was eager to find out if Jamison thought she might keep going with her writing beyond school. For now, at nearly 10 years old, she is thinking she maybe wants to be a teacher when she grows up\u2014like Mom.

Lastly, I asked Jamison to describe Dottie to me, in case she ever gets lost again.

\u201cShe\u2019s white with dots on her,\u201d Jamison described her canine best friend to me. \u201cShe\u2019s sweet and she\u2019s loving\u2014sometimes she\u2019s naughty, though.\u201d

Hopefully Naughty Dottie stays at home from here on out.

Featured Photo Caption:<\/strong> Jamison Rae Roethler (9) and her family\u2019s two-year-old American Bulldog, Dottie. Photo courtesy of the Roethler family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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