Pet Was Seen on TV After Baldwin Hills Fire : All Else Lost, Couple Want Their Dog

Their classic Jaguar XKE was burned to a crisp, as was the entire Don Carlos Drive home they had rented from a relative since last year. Volumes of law journals were lost, as well as a wedding gown and photos.

But in the aftermath of last week’s Baldwin Hills fire, Lawrence and Monika Bohana said they can think of only one thing: Shatzi, their 9-month-old Shih Tzu dog.

A few hours after the fire, relatives saw Shatzi on television--in the arms of a stranger.

“I know he’s alive; that’s the hard part,” said an emotional Monika Bohana, as she stood outside the remains of the three-bedroom home this weekend. “I have seen the film clip. A newsman filmed a man walking away with him.”

Was Locked in Kitchen

The couple, who have been married six years and have no children, have taken out a classified advertisement in The Times, offering a $1,000 reward for the dog’s return.

Shatzi was locked in the kitchen Tuesday afternoon, Monika Bohana said, when fire swept through the affluent hilltop neighborhood, leveling 48 homes and killing three people. Numerous pets were killed or injured in the blaze, but fire officials at the scene told Donald Bohana, who rented the house to his brother, that a white fluffy dog had been rescued--alive and well--from a kitchen in one of the burning homes.

“There was so much pandemonium going on, there is no way of knowing what happened after that,” Donald Bohana said. “The fireman only saw that the dog was safe.”

Monika Bohana said she knew it was Shatzi when relatives saw a film clip on the KTLA-TV news of a man carrying a small white dog. The couple went to the KTLA studios Friday and reviewed the videotape.

“We lost everything in the fire, but all we want is to get him back,” said Monika Bohana, 35, a secretary. “It is hard for us to carry on; he is so important to us.”

Lawrence Bohana, 40, an attorney for California Life Insurance Co., said the couple have phoned animal shelters and humane societies from Hawthorne to downtown Los Angeles in hopes of recovering the pet. Visits to several nearby shelters proved fruitless, he said, although the couple did see several unclaimed cats and dogs with burned paws and legs.

On Saturday, the couple walked the charred neighborhood, talking to police officers, fire officials and neighbors. They posted a large sign seeking help on a gutted house across the street and distributed photocopies of a picture taken from the KTLA tape that showed a shirtless man carrying the dog.

“We sympathize with those who lost lives or family members, but he is part of our family, too,” Lawrence Bohana said. “Maybe only people with pets can understand what we are going through.”

The Bohanas, who just last year moved to Baldwin Hills from Walnut, where they were not allowed to have a pet, said they fear that Shatzi has been kidnaped or stolen. They said they paid $300 for the dog last fall.

Anyone with any information about the dog may call (213) 292-2516.