Dognapping is the thing that worries us the most with Higgins. He is just too little and too cute and too tempting......
How cruel! I hope they get them and throw the book at 'em!
About the value of your dog(s): Keep careful documentation (cancelled check, for instance, or a breeder's contract) of what you paid for your dog. Also keep records of veterinarian expenses, etc. We had our two purebred English Setters stolen out of our LOCKED kennel in the country while we were shopping one day. FORTUNATELY, they were tattooed with my social security number. We notified our Connecticut State Police, but they said that they only investigated "felony" thefts of items valued at over $2,000. Our dogs qualified since they were show dogs. They got very interested when we reported that other purebred dog owners had been made aware of two theft rings stealing dogs for fighting dogs and dogs to be sold to labs, as well as dogs for whom forged AKC papers could be made, particularly hunting dogs.
Shortly afterward, the thiefs unknowingly stole a NY State Trooper's trained K-9 police dog. Then ALL the cops in the Northeast got interested, and eventually, both dogknapping rings were arrested. Our dogs? They were found with two other tattooed purebreds, DRUGGED, in a town dump about 20 miles from us a few days later. It was too risky to deal with tattooed dogs, so that is why they were put out. The man in charge of the dump had a rifle raised to shoot them when a citizen happened into the dump and stopped him, saying the dogs looked "too good" to just be dumped there and called the local dog warden. SCARY! But we were fortunate to be able to prove the value of the dogs or the police would NOT have cared one whit about investigating any of it. |