Wise County - Jack, a two-year-old black lab, has been missing from the Lewis family's backyard since Dec. 27.
His bright blue collar still hangs above his kennel."It makes me think of him," said Robin Lewis.
But it wasn't until Robin turned to Facebook that she realized there may be much more to his disappearance.
"If you back track it to the beginning of November, it's frightening."
Two dogs from her neighbor Jana's yard went missing on the same day.
Around the same time, Cassidy McKibben's four-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Lily, disappeared.
"I noticed that my fence was messed up, and I have posted something everyday since she's been gone," McKibben said.
They would eventually learn more than 40 dogs have gone missing in and around Wise County in just the last two months.
© Lewis familyJack went missing from Robin Lewis' back yard on Dec. 27.
They've now enlisted the help of Sheriff David Walker.
"It does have some eyebrows raised," Walker said.
Walker noticed that the numbers are much higher than they've ever seen, and there is speculation that this could be suspicious.
"Could they be using them in dog fights? It's possible," he said.
The only lead they have is a suspicious car, spotted in Robin's neighborhood the day Jack went missing.
Optimism has turned rational. These families are hoping that, at the very least, a new family is taking care of their beloved dogs.
"We're at the point we're hoping someone bought our dogs," Jana Woodruff said.
Twenty years ago in our county, Okanogan County, Washington, we had some men kidnapping dogs and selling them to university research labs.