The search for Smiley continues.

The mixed-breed dog is still at large a week and a half after an unknown person or group broke into the WAIF animal shelter in Coupeville sometime late Friday or early Saturday, Feb. 7.

The thief or thieves clipped through a cyclone fence and chain-link kennel, and lured the dog out with salami.

An Island County Sheriff’s Office detective is investigating the case, but the county will not expend extra time, resources or manpower to solve Smiley’s disappearance, Sheriff Mike Brown said Tuesday.

“It’s a class B felony, and that’s a crime,” he said of the theft, which is considered a commercial burglary.

The sheriff said the department will investigate the incident based on those grounds.

“I will just work it as a commercial burglary,” he said,

The burglary garnered extra attention from the community because Smiley is at the center of an unresolved legal battle.

For almost two years, Smiley was available for adoption from the Coupeville shelter; however, he developed signs of kennel stress that are documented in the shelter’s daily dog walking log by staff and volunteers.

Shelter officials decided to euthanize the dog in November because of increasingly aggressive behavior. Before WAIF could euthanize Smiley, former volunteers Barbara Moran and Bob Baker sued the nonprofit organization in an effort to save the dog’s life.

The dog disappeared following Superior Court Judge Vickie Churchill’s ruling in favor of WAIF on Feb. 6.

Even without the dog, animal lawyer Adam Karp plans to appeal Churchill’s ruling and take the case to the State Court of Appeals, on behalf of Moran and Baker, he said last week.