While law enforcement will file a
report, it won’t be a priority to investi- gate. The best chance for recovering a stolen or missing pet is to become your own private detective.
Ceasar. Recovered. Then, Almost Euthanized.
Earlier this year, Michigan State Police raided two dog fighting rings, discovering dozens of dogs, including a long lost fam- ily pet. Ceasar had been stolen from his home more than three years ago. Despite
Weinberger. Laurie Simmons, president of Big Dog Ranch Rescue told him it was a collar used for bait dogs in dog- fighting. Blackjack was maimed, allegedly from fighting, and the collar was imbed- ded into his flesh. Thankfully, the dog’s microchip led Big Dog Ranch Rescue back to Moreland, who had tears of joy streaming down his face when he was finally reunited with Blackjack.
Joie A Disc Dog Champion.
endless efforts by family and friends to locate him, Ceasar was not found until police posted a photo of the dog after the raid. All of the dogs were being held at the Michigan Humane Society as part of the investigation. The family contacted the authorities but did not receive a response. Shortly thereafter, all of the dogs seized in the raid, including Ceasar, were placed under euthanasia order. Thankfully, persistence by the family resulted in a happy ending to their night- mare. They were finally reunited with Ceasar on October 7, 2016.
Blackjack Stolen From His Owner’s Home.
The German Shepherd Dog was stolen right from his owner's home in Miramar, Florida. “I didn't know that I’d ever see him again,” said Bob Moreland, a Vietnam Veteran. “It hurt me to my heart.” Ten months after the dog was
stolen, he was found wandering around Pembroke Pines. Big Dog Ranch Rescue in Wellington was notified and sent vol- unteer Eric Weinberger to help bring the dog to safety. But when Weinberger arrived, he was alarmed by what he saw. “This God-awful collar was around his neck. I’d never seen anything like it,” said
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Sandy Christiansen, a program coordina- tor for the Tallahassee bureau of the ASPCA’s Legal Advocacy Department, believes teenagers, not professional dog fighters, may often be to blame. “It’s been my experience that in an urban environ- ment, the dogs that are being stolen are often used by less sophisticated people looking for the thrill of watching their dog beat up another dog,” said Christiansen. Susan Jones, a reader of THE NEW
BARKER, contacted us earlier this year about her own harrowing experience. “Joie was my 18-month-old Australian Cattle dog who went missing 10 years ago, on September 26, from our home in Thonotosassa.” The area was known to have a family dog-fighting ring, Susan told us. Two weeks after Joie disappeared, two teenagers in the area were arrested for fighting their pet dogs. One of them bragged to investigators that they were part of Michael Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels. In the family’s ongoing efforts to
find Joie, they discovered she was last seen, and tracked, inside the Big Top Flea Market on Fowler Avenue in Tampa. It turns out the live-in caretaker of the flea market was also a family friend of the two teenagers arrested for fighting their dogs.
“We filed a stolen property report
with the Hillsborough County Sheriff ’s Office. When the investigating officer questioned the flea market’s caretaker about Joie, he admitted to having seen her at the flea market. He claimed that when he opened the gate for business, though, Joie ran out across Fowler Avenue and into a wooded area. Later, he changed his story, telling the detective that she was hit by a vehicle.” Susan drove by the flea market every
day in her exhaustive search for Joie. “I never saw her running loose and certain- ly never saw her body after it had been hit, as the caretaker claimed.” A couple of weeks later, the family
received a mysterious phone call saying Joie’s body had been seen on Highway 27 in Miami. “When we called the phone number left on the message, my husband talked to a lady who claimed to have Joie’s body.” The family immediately drove to Miami. But, when they arrived, the woman and her male companion told Susan that someone else had shown up to claim the dog’s body. “There were so many strange inci-
dents surrounding Joie’s disappearance. From all of this, I learned about major drug dealing and other illegal activity that goes on in the world of dog-fighting. Besides being my beloved companion, Joie had just competed and won a spot at the Skyhoundz World for Disc Dogs the same day she was stolen from our yard. I miss her every day.”
U
THREE RECOVERY TIPS 1. Protect your dog with microchip identi- fication. Thieves will not know the dog has a microchip until a veterinarian or shelter worker scans it. Keep contact information current with your microchip recovery service provider. 2. If you suspect your dog has been stolen, immediately call the police/animal control officer in the area your pet was last seen and file a police report. If your dog has a microchip, ask to have that unique serial number, along with the dog’s description, posted in the “stolen article” category on the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. 3. Canvass the neighborhood and post fliers. Talk to people in the immediate vicinity where your pet went missing, for possible sightings of the actual theft.
Winter 2017 THE NEW BARKER 77
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