Musician Pines for Missing Canine

You can still get a potato mashed, baked, fried, herbed, au gratin, tatertotted, hash browned or raw in the Square, but there's one kind of Potato that's missing: the one that has four legs and barks.

Potato, the small terrier owned by street musician Ned Landin--a.k.a. Flathead--has been a Square fixture for two years, but she was lost six days ago near The Harvest, the Brattle Street restaurant.

Landin has mounted a massive search for the "little scruffy black and grey terrier mix"--a dead ringer for Toto, he says--posting approximately 2,000 fliers and informing local merchants, but so far, no Potato.

The disappearance and possible abduction took place while Landin was speaking to friends outside the restaurant, he says. He had allowed Potato to wander freely, as he often did, and two women allegedly mistook her for a stray and took her home. She had no leash or collar at the time.

"They were asking whose dog it was," Landin says, and they took down the phone number of the restaurant but the Harvest bartender "didn't get their number, draft."

Landin is distraught over the loss, and he is not the only one. Local merchants and musicians know the long-haired folk artist and his tubernamed pooch, and they have posted fliers and spread the word. Landin said many people have contacted him and expressed condolences, and six have claimed having dreams about Potato.

"The dog's always here,[s]he never wanders far," says Scott M. Lasafer, who works in The Body Shop. Landin's normal performance space is at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Church Street, in front of the natural goods purveyor and Store 24.

"I think he draws in more people than anyone else does," says Lasaffre, who keeps one of Landin's tapes in The Body Shop's back office.

"He's an institution," Store 24 clerk Joe M. Hatfield says of Landin.

For two years, too, Potato has been a Square institution, and may not feel at home anywhere else.

"She was sort of a dog of the Square," he says, and indeed Potato's entire known life centered around that valuable piece of real estate.

Landin got the dog when a man whose house guest had decamped without the small terrier offered the dog as a donation.

The musician held a contest in the Square toname the dog.

"People were calling her Harvard, people werecalling her Velcro," he says, for her Brillo-likerough fur.

But in the end, he says, "I sort of think shetold me her name, although that sounds kind offlaky."

Her personality was "incredibly quiet and verysweet," Landin says. She was friendly tospectators and played an important part in hismusical act, says Landin.

"She would do silly dog tricks. She really knewhow to work a crowd," he says.

And the musician says he will not give up thequest for the return of his 24-hour-a-daycompanion and furry friend. He plans a blitzkriegof fliers, buttons and even T-shirts spreading theword.

It could be a health concern, he says.

"She would not eat and be all weird when shewasn't with me," says Landin. "I hope they haven'tjust taken her to some obscure pound out there inWestern Mass."

Anyone with information regarding Potato'swhereabouts will probably find her ownerperforming tonight at his usual spot, in front ofStore 24

The musician held a contest in the Square toname the dog.

"People were calling her Harvard, people werecalling her Velcro," he says, for her Brillo-likerough fur.

But in the end, he says, "I sort of think shetold me her name, although that sounds kind offlaky."

Her personality was "incredibly quiet and verysweet," Landin says. She was friendly tospectators and played an important part in hismusical act, says Landin.

"She would do silly dog tricks. She really knewhow to work a crowd," he says.

And the musician says he will not give up thequest for the return of his 24-hour-a-daycompanion and furry friend. He plans a blitzkriegof fliers, buttons and even T-shirts spreading theword.

It could be a health concern, he says.

"She would not eat and be all weird when shewasn't with me," says Landin. "I hope they haven'tjust taken her to some obscure pound out there inWestern Mass."

Anyone with information regarding Potato'swhereabouts will probably find her ownerperforming tonight at his usual spot, in front ofStore 24