Let's celebrate Christmas with theft!

[Antisocial_Worker]

I'm typing this over the remains of a sumptuous lunch at the biggest, and best, Mexican restaurant in town. It's located on a very busy road, in between a supermarket and a motel. There's a patch of woods behind the motel, and as I was pulling into the restaurant parking lot I saw a woman come out of the woods behind the motel. She'd obviously been crying.

I parked as she wandered into the restaurant parking lot, and I got out, went up to her, and asked if she needed help. She didn't look as though she'd been hurt or anything, but someone crying is someone crying.

She told me a sordid story... she and her husband had just bought a puppy for their kids, to replace a dog that died in September. It was to be a Christmas surprise. They'd come to have lunch, and because it's fairly warm today, they'd left the puppy in the back of their truck, leashed and tied in, safe as houses.

So of course some passing asshole stole it. She'd sort of held out hope that maybe someone had just let it loose, but that seemed unlikely by this point. She'd been looking in the woods and at the motel. Her husband was searching the supermarket parking lot.

To no avail, probably. Someone stole their Christmas puppy.

[Moirae]

What the hell is wrong with people?

[Pixilated]

My FB page seems awash these days with notices of stolen dogs. No idea WTH is going on. Some have been stolen from inside the owner's apartment. It's more than a little creepy.

I'm so sorry for her and her hubby, because who knows whether they can afford yet another puppy. And I'm also sorry for the pup, because ... who knows what's happened to it.

Wonder if they tried checking the local shelters/pounds; it's possible that somebody thought the dog was being abused, left in the truck like that, and turned it over to a local authority.

[AnaKhouri]

Hopefully for the pup it was someone who just wanted that type of dog, or maybe someone who thought it was mean to leave it in the car (despite the temperature). Many stolen dogs are sent to a much worse fate.

[Mystic]

People like this piss me off so badly.

[Estil]

That was terrible...I hope the puppynapper gets put on the naughtly list for life...both Santa's and the Humane Society's!!

[Jay 2K Winger]

The person who would do this kind of thing is going to the special hell.

[EvilEmpryss]

Someone in my area stole a puppy in a backpack just last week. The owner had stepped into a convenience store to make a purchase and came out to find backpack and puppy gone.

This is terrible, but what freaked me out was finding out that stealing a dog is a FELONY in my state! They equate stealing a dog with murder and rape! It's heartbreaking to lose an animal, but I can't believe it's treated as the same level of heinous act.

Ironically, the puppy's name is reported to be "Lucky".

[Tama]

I think it's because it's been repeatedly shown that if you hurt animals a lot you are REALLY likely to turn out to be a murderer or other violent criminal too.

[EvilEmpryss]

No, it's not hurting an animal that's a felony, it's just the theft of a dog. Specifically a dog. If you pick up a stray and don't try to find the owner, you can be charged with it.

[HiddenMica]

Do you know how much a pure bred dog from a breeder COSTS? No kidding it's a felony it's theft of property over 800 in value most usually, that's the cheapest purebred I've found and those are pet store dogs! The breeder dogs will start at usually a thousand or more! They just applied it to all dogs instead of just purebreds!

[Seshat]

I hope the family does check the shelters - and that wherever they bought the puppy from had him microchipped.

Sadly, if he was deliberately stolen, that's not likely to be much help in finding him. But if it was a 'he looks neglected, I'm taking him to a shelter' situation, the 'chip will help.

[Estil]

Someone in my area stole a puppy in a backpack just last week. The owner had stepped into a convenience store to make a purchase and came out to find backpack and puppy gone.

This is terrible, but what freaked me out was finding out that stealing a dog is a FELONY in my state! They equate stealing a dog with murder and rape! It's heartbreaking to lose an animal, but I can't believe it's treated as the same level of heinous act.

Ironically, the puppy's name is reported to be "Lucky".

In the Old West days stealing a horse (I guess the then-grand theft auto?) got you hanged.

[Sapphire Silk]

No, it's not hurting an animal that's a felony, it's just the theft of a dog. Specifically a dog. If you pick up a stray and don't try to find the owner, you can be charged with it.

On top of that, the asshole a few years ago who nearly burned a puppy to death got a few days in jail as his punishment.

In the Old West days stealing a horse (I guess the then-grand theft auto?) got you hanged.

Because horse theft could be life threatening . . . without transportation or an animal to work the farm, you could quite literally die because of it.

[wolfie]

Because horse theft could be life threatening . . . without transportation or an animal to work the farm, you could quite literally die because of it.

Just like in the Northern (Klondike and Alaska) gold rushes, the penalty for stealing a bag of flour out of a cache was higher than that for stealing a pound of nuggets. Same reasoning.