Mr. Meepers, come home.

Three weeks ago, Tricia and Scott Rosenkranz lost their beloved pet, a five-year-old, dark-gray Chihuahua/Italian greyhound mix named Mr. Meepers. They’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to find him, spending more than $1,200 to hire a pet psychic and a professional tracker, and enlisting the help of humane societies. But despite their efforts, now, almost three weeks after he went missing, Mr. Meepers has yet to be found.

Mr. Meepers went missing the evening of Sept. 4, when he slipped his leash on a hike in Smith Rock State Park. Members of the Rosenkranz clan of Portland went without sleep to search for their beloved pet, but they found no trace of him. They stayed at the park the rest of the week, leaving only to return their rental car and make fliers describing Mr. Meepers.

”My first thought was, ‘He’s coyote poop,’” said Henry Oakes of International K9 Search and Rescue, of Mr. Meepers’ chances of survival.

Friends describe Mr. Meepers – ”Meeps” for short – as a smart and playful ”mama’s boy” who runs away from neighborhood cats. His favorite game is catching the Frisbee.

”He actually runs the show,” said Gina Kuwano, a close friend of Tricia’s, who often cares for the dog. ”We’re kind of lost without him.”

Even worse, Mr. Meepers was lost in the High Desert, likely a 12-pound treat for coyotes and other predators. The odds seemed to be against the pampered pooch.

Scott and Tricia put forth a mammoth effort to find their tiny friend. They posted fliers. They knocked on doors. They called humane societies as far away as Idaho. They even tried, unsuccessfully, to enlist Deschutes County Search and Rescue. There was no sight of the dog, so the Rosenkranz family turned to a less conventional source of help: Faye Pietrokowsky, pet psychic.

”I told them to work mentally with the animal and maybe you will find him,” said Pietrokowsky, who performs readings in person and over the phone from her Portland home, at a cost of $30 per 15 minutes. ”I saw he had a great spirit, so it would take a lot to make him give up.”

Pietrokowsky, who claims she can sense animals’ thoughts and feelings, told Tricia that Mr. Meepers was still near Smith Rock, but was traveling in a way that made it impossible to track him.

By the end of the week, Scott and Tricia were so worried they hired Oakes to pick up Meepers’ trail. Oakes’ resume includes helping locate bodies after the Oklahoma City bombing and, most recently, discovering Ashley Pond’s body in Ward Weaver’s backyard. Although Oakes was initially skeptical about the dog’s prospects of surviving, he agreed to take the job, for his usual fee of $200 per hour.

On Sept. 10, Oakes and his border collie, Valerie, tracked Mr. Meepers’ meandering trail from the campsite at Smith Rock for about a mile and half. They found field mouse carcasses – evidence that Meepers had found nourishment. It would be a change of diet for Mr. Meepers, who normally eats premium pet food and raw meat because some cheaper dog foods irritate his skin.

Oakes followed Meepers’ trail for about an hour and a half. It ended at the entrance to a coyote den. Tricia and Scott called into the hole, but got no response.

”We even sprayed bear mace in there hoping to hear him cough or something, but there was nothing,” Oakes said.

But Valerie, the border collie, didn’t react like she usually does when she smells death, and there was no evidence that Meepers had been eaten. Scott and Tricia held out hope that Meepers sought out the den to keep warm, but they returned home to Portland fearing the worst.

For a week, the Rosenkranz siblings waited anxiously for Mr. Meepers to be found. Then, on Monday, 16 days after Meepers went missing, they received a call from a woman in Terrebonne who spotted a Chihuahua stealing food from her dog’s bowl. Mr. Meepers, five years old and still alive, had learned a new trick.

Tricia and Scott sprayed their urine in the area, in hopes that Meepers would be drawn to his owners’ scents. When he didn’t come back, Tricia called Oakes back to the scene to make sure the unidentified Chihuahua was, indeed, Mr. Meepers. Oakes and his dog, Valerie, quickly picked up the scent and followed it through a housing development to the intersection of Northeast Xenolith and Northeast 5th streets in Terrebonne.

”We just missed him by 20 hours,” said a frustrated Scott.

Oakes believes someone retrieved Meepers from the side of the road. Scott and Tricia hope that someone calls and have offered a reward for his safe return.

If you have any information about Mr. Meepers’ whereabouts, please call Scott Rosenkranz at 503-238-0860.

Keith Chu can be reached at 541-383-0348.