$1,000 Reward for Affluenza Teen's Lost Dog in Puerto Vallarta Salon
go to original January 9, 2016

Photo of Virgil on SPCA-PV Facebook page said to be posted by a Couch relative in Texas with the message, "RECOMPENSA $ 1000 PERRO PERDIDO EN PUERTO VALLARTA. Perdido en todo Colombia St. Si alguna información sobre su paradero por favor póngase en contacto con Misty al ( 817 ) 9449311 Respuestas a Virgilio." - or - "$1,000 Reward for Lost Dog in Puerto Vallarta. Lost on Colombia Street. If you have any information on the whereabouts, please get in touch with Misty at (817) 944-9311. Answers to Virgil."

Turns out there’s at least one member of Ethan Couch’s family deserving of some sympathy. So spare a kind thought today for poor Virgil, Couch’s reportedly now missing dog.

Though the specifics of the journey that took notorious “affluenza” teen Ethan Couch and his mother Tonya last month from Texas — where the younger Couch was on probation for a 2013 drunk driving accident that left four people dead — to Puerto Vallarta, are still vague, one detail of their life on the lam has begun to emerge. It seems they brought the dog.

Last month the New York Times reported that Couch and his mother had “held a kind of farewell celebration with friends” before they disappeared. Then, after Couch and his mom were picked up in Mexico late last month, the Dallas Morning News reported that Marina Meza, a hotel employee Los Tules resort where the two were staying, “just felt something wasn’t completely right” with the family while they were there. And she noted they were with their canine. “The boy walked in and asked if we had rooms available and whether their dog was allowed,” she recalled. The CBS local Dallas news similarly reported that “A pet dog helped the pair avoid deportation at first. The Couches claimed it was wrongfully taken from them and therefore their arrest, they claimed, was unlawful.”

Tonya Couch was arraigned in Texas on Friday, while her son is still currently fighting deportation in Mexico. Earlier this week, her attorney, Stephanie Patten, told WFAA that “Her two main concerns remain about her son Ethan, and how he is doing in Mexico… and her dog, Virgil.”

Read the original at Salon.

Read related: 'Affluenza' Teen Ethan Couch Captured After Ordering Pizza in Puerto Vallarta

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