The lost-and-found adventures of Pirate Pete the Pug

How a three-week escape by a one-eyed pug named Pirate Pete brought Battle Ground together and turned a dog into a folk hero

• Thanks to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for support to help make this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project possible.

---

THE LOST-AND-FOUND ADVENTURES OF PIRATE PETE THE PUG

Pizza King in Battle Ground is taking suggestions for a pizza named in his honor. His face already has been turning up on mugs and stickers. There’s been talk about backyards being offered up to host meet-and-greet receptions, hero’s welcome-style.

And after three weeks on the run – building himself into a local legend, his movements tracked by ghostly, nighttime security cam footage and come-quick announcements of backyard sightings on Battle Ground Beat, a 5,100-member Facebook page – Pirate Pete, the one-eyed pug, is home.

“The last three weeks have been kind of a blur,” Eric Martin, Pete’s owner, said Thursday evening, two days after the 1-year-old, 16-pound pug’s adventure ended in a Battle Ground neighbor’s live trap.

Pirate Pete gets some rest at home Wednesday, after three weeks on the run. (Photo: Eric Martin)

“To hear everyone celebrating, you’d think Pete was like part of their family,” Martin said. “It kind of felt that way, the way everyone was in on it the last few weeks.”

Pete’s escape through a screen window of Martin’s home north of Battle Ground on May 9 eventually turned into a community rallying point, with Pete playing the elusive folk hero.

Martin said the tale started when a friend took in Pete from a family that had adopted the pug but was on the verge of taking it to a shelter when they wound up not being in a position to take care of it. Martin said he’d been told that Pete had been passed from one household to another several times during the week before his friend persuaded him to take the dog. Martin said Pete was a bit high-strung, which he wrote off to what he’d been told had been an unstable life.

NEW TO BASED IN LAFAYETTE. HERE’S HOW TO GET THE REPORTING PROJECT STRAIGHT TO YOUR IN-BOX.

On that Tuesday, Martin said he’d come home from his job as a dairy delivery driver to no sign of Pete. Instead, he found a pug-sized hole in a window screen.

“At that point, I figured he would just pop up from the woods around my house,” Martin said. “It didn’t happen.”

A little more than a week into his search – driving backroads, sharing details with those who live close and checking in with a microchip company that informed him that the dog’s full name was Pirate Pete – a neighbor asked if she could post about Pete on Battle Ground Beat. The moderated Facebook page, dedicated to the town four miles north of Lafayette, has roughly 5,000 people and is a source to share yard sales, road closure information and assorted things happening in and around town.

Martin said he’d doubted that Pete would be in Battle Ground, which is about five miles south of his home, which sits just inside White County.

“But, I figured, what could it hurt?” Martin said. “Lo and behold, that’s when it picked up and just took on a life of its own.”

Pete’s escape became an instant fascination on Battle Ground Beat. Pete did, in fact, make it to Battle Ground. People shared security cam video of him trotting through yards at night. They shared strategies about how to approach a dog that tended to run when anyone got close. There was talk about working up T-shirts and other memorabilia as days went on.

Between reports on the Battle Ground Beat and tips phoned directly to Martin, Pirate Pete was seen near Wolf Park, along Indiana 225, near the Battle Ground golf course, at the Tippecanoe Battlefield, along Prophet’s Rock Road, near the China Grove subdivision … pretty much in all directions around Battle Ground.

“All the time, it was like, How did he get over there?” Martin said. “He was fast. … I just didn’t know how long he could last out there, between cars on the road and coyotes out there.”

“It was kind of exciting,” Kier Crites Muller, a Battle Ground resident and CEO of Food Finders Food Bank in Lafayette, said. Crites Muller said she and her husband took a couple of drives around town to see if they could spot Pete once his story started spreading in town.

“Everybody was constantly watching for Pete’s sightings and sharing information with each other,” Crites Muller said. “It was just really great to see the town pull together for this little dog that’s not even from Battle Ground. … It makes me feel good that people would do the same for my ‘boys’ if they got lost.”

Dona Benham, who lives on County Road 300 East near Prophets Rock Road, said she thought all the Facebook talk about a runaway pug with a pirate name was a hoax, that “the town was just having some fun telling this story.” When a neighbor mentioned seeing Pete, she said she came around and started keeping an eye out, too.

Tuesday morning, three weeks to the day after Pete took off, Benham said she heard a thud on her porch. She said it looked as if Pete had been sleeping on a chair on the porch and hopped down as she came outside. She said she sat in the grass, trying to get on his level, hoping he’d come close. Pete wasn’t playing. He trotted into nearby woods, instead.

That day, Benham put out a live trap she typically reserved for feral cats, setting it with lunchmeat and a little bit of cat food. By 8:30 that night, Pete was in the cage. Not long after that, Martin was there to pick up an excited Pete. A picture of Benham became the hit of Battle Ground Beat.

“I don’t know that I’m a hero,” Benham said, laughing. (Though, she said someone who had been following the chapter insisted on giving her coupons for two free pizzas at a Pizza Hut in Lafayette as a reward.)

“The whole town’s been invested in this little guy,” Benham said.

Natasha Baker, a Battle Ground resident, designed commemorative coffee mugs featuring a pug with an eye patch and a pirate hat, touting that part of the $10 order price would go to Pete’s owner to offset veterinarian bills after his time wandering. She said she started the project when someone on Battle Ground Beat suggested T-shirts.

“I had the mugs already and decided to make a fun design to commemorate the fun Battle Ground had while trying to catch Pete the Pug,” Baker said. “Sales are already picking up. I’m excited to be able to help cover part of Pete’s vet bill that he acquired during his escapades.”

Battle Ground’s Pizza King, 105 North St., called out for help concocting a pizza – early suggestion: sausage, pepperoni and ham, with a barbecue drizzle on top – and then naming it for the local celebrity. Among the nominations: Pete Special, Pug Special, The Triple P (Pirate Pete the Pug)  and The Puggy.

“It's amazing how the little guy got to so many hearts,” Bob Greene, a Battle Ground resident, said. “It reinforced for me how here in the forgotten Midwest we still love to root for the underdog. It was really awesome to see that come to the forefront. We need more of this in this country at this time in our history.”

Eric Martin holds Pirate Pete after the pug was caught Tuesday evening. (Photo provided by Eric Martin)

Martin said that after a trip to the vet to make sure the dog was OK – “He checks out,” he said – Pete had been resting. Martin said he got Pete a new leash. He also picked up a crate, where Pete stayed Thursday while Martin was at work.

“I think he’s had a rough life,” Martin said. “I think once he is able to settle into one home and get some years on him, he’ll stick close and turn out to be a pretty good dog. I hope he got some of it out of his system.”

Thanks, again, to Stuart & Branigin for sponsoring today’s edition.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING BASED IN LAFAYETTE, AN INDEPENDENT, LOCAL REPORTING PROJECT. FREE AND FULL-RIDE SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS ARE READY FOR YOU HERE.

Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Like and follow Based in Lafayette on Facebook: Based in Lafayette