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Missing Pug Returns as Baltimore Cracks Down on Dogfighting

Owner feared twin pugs were stolen as 'bait'

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

August 23, 2007
A Baltimore woman who feared her stolen Pug was the victim of a dognapping ring received good news this week.

Thomas

Her missing dog, Thomas, returned home safely Tuesday night -- more than a month after he and his twin brother, Ritchie, were stolen from the backyard of Sherrie T.’s Baltimore home.

Baltimore police, who initially downplayed Sherrie’s stolen dogs report, recovered Ritchie three days after his disappearance.

But that action only came after Sherrie contacted her city councilman and did some detective work on her own.

“My backyard is like Ft. Knox,” Sherrie T. told us. “I have a four-foot wooden privacy fence. There’s no way my dogs could escape.”

As ConsumerAffairs.com reported last month, Sherri immediately posted flyers around her neighborhood after the dogs disappeared on Friday, July 20.

She also contacted the animal shelters in Baltimore, her veterinarian’s office, the Mid-Atlantic Pug Rescue organization, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Sherrie’s first break came on July 21 when two teenagers saw her searching the neighborhood.

“(They) said they’d seen my dogs leaving a (nearby) house and being put into a black car. They didn’t get a license plate on the car, though.”

Sherrie’s neighbors immediately took a flyer to that house, located in the 5100 block of Belair Road in N.E. Baltimore.

“Around 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, I got a call from a woman who said she had one of my dogs. She said she wasn’t sure where my other dog was.”

Sherrie became suspicious when the caller demanded a reward for her dog’s safe return.

No reward

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“I told her there was no reward because my dogs were stolen. I also told her there was a national search for my dogs and that some teenagers had seen my dogs taken from the house on Belair Road.

“The woman said she didn’t want any trouble -- but wanted a reward -- and claimed someone had taken the dog to her mom’s house.”

The caller finally told Sherrie she could come and get her dog. “But the address and phone number she gave me turned out to be bogus.”

Sherrie then contacted the Baltimore Police Department and asked officers to meet her at the Belair Road house -- the last known location of her dogs.

“The police told me it wasn’t an emergency and never showed up,” Sherrie told us. “I waited for them for three hours in front of the house on Belair Road.”

Police didn’t get involved in Sherrie’s case until she contacted Baltimore City Councilman Nicholas D’Adamo.

“He called me at 9:30 Monday night,” Sherrie said.

Less than two hours later, Baltimore police dispatched five patrol cars to the house on Belair Road.

“That’s how they were able to locate the woman who called me and demanded a reward for my dogs,” Sherrie said. “Her story to them is that she found the dogs walking the neighborhood and that my other dog was hit by a car. But she couldn’t say where that accident occurred.”

At 11:30 p.m. on Monday, July 23, police officers recovered Ritchie — from the woman who demanded a reward from Sherrie. “But she wasn’t at the Belair Road house when they retrieved him. She was at another house — not far away.”

Never gave up

Sherrie said she never gave up hope about finding Thomas.

“I figure that if I got one of my dogs back, I’ll get the other one back, too.”

She continued to hang up flyers, contact the local shelters, and pound the pavement.

“Someone said they thought they saw a dog jump out the window of that black car,” Sherrie said, adding both Pugs had microchips that can be used to identify them. “I think Thomas is somewhere nearby.”

Her instincts were right.

“A lady about seven blocks away had seen him and had been taking care of him for a few weeks,” Sherrie told us late Wednesday. “She saw my flyers and brought him home.”

Baltimore police told ConsumerAffairs.com they considered Sherrie’s case the “mysterious disappearance” of two dogs.

A spokesman said there were no eyewitnesses who saw the Pugs being stolen. He also said there was no evidence the woman who had Ritchie stole the dog. Authorities have not charged anyone in connection with the case.

Dognapping problem

Meanwhile, Councilman D’Adamo said dognapping is a problem in Baltimore.

“It happens a lot,” he told us. “We have a problem with Pit Bull fighting. In the last two years, Pit Bull fighting has become big on the entire East Coast.”

The U.S. Humane Society and other animal rights organizations say dogs are often stolen and used as “bait” to train Pit Bulls.

“But police can never catch those involved,” Councilman D’Adamo said of the problem in his city. “It’s hard to say who is doing it. We see the animals when they’re dead -- after the fact. They’re holding these fights in places where no one is around.”

D’Adamo said no one comes forward with information about these dogfighting cases -- or other violent crimes.

“We’re the second most violent city in the country. We have people killed on the street every day. But people don’t want to get involved. It’s sad. We shouldn’t live like this.”

Dogfighting task force

In the past month, however, Baltimore police and city health officials have formed a multi-agency dogfighting task force to crack down on this blood sport, noting its connection to drug dealing and illegal gambling.

Police acknowledge that dogfighting has been popular for years in Baltimore. Most of the fights are held in rowhouse basements, they said. But they’re rarely prosecuted because the city is overwhelmed with other violent crimes.

Detectives, however, will now investigate dogfighting rings and collect evidence against organizers, trainers, breeders and spectators.

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