I’ve noticed that by me every 2 years or so the number of dogs reported missing skyrockets for a few weeks. I’ll see reports on FB of about 20+ dogs all missing in a 2 week period.
Afterward, it goes back to one dog missing every other month.
I know that dog theft really does happen, either for resale or for them to be used as bait to be ripped apart by fighting dogs. My question is… if there are such things as dog theft rings… and if they stop after about two weeks… does it make sense to assume that they have moved on to another part of the state or even another state?
Also, assuming that dog theft teams do exist and do move around, does it make sense to assume that they have some kind of ‘circuit’ that they work where it could take up to two years to again hit the same town again that they’ve hit before…?
Do you have any evidence that dog theft is common? There are a few very expensive breeds like Lady Gaga’s dogs occasionally stolen for ransom, otherwise not that much call for stolen dogs. I could have said ‘hot dogs’ there, but take note that I did not write such a terrible pun.
Aside from a sudden uptick in missing dog reports on a town FB page? People posting multiple dozen “have you see my dog?” with a picture attached and a phone number inside of a month? My direct observation that the following month there are almost no dogs reported missing?
Well, I did find a few cites:
Evidently it might be a thing, but even I was hesitant to assume it was, hence the purpose and statement of the thread.
Missing dogs are not stolen dogs, and stolen dogs have to be rare or be held hostage to be profitable, which is why a dog theft ring would exist. I do not think there are rings of dog thieves who just want to own a lot of dogs to take care of.
Damn, an international dog theft ring that makes enough to be international?
Damn, all that time learning to crack safes and pick lock wasted? All I needed was a box of Milk Bones and a tennis ball?
My grandparents were living in an apartment complex when an unknown number of thieves organized and broke into a bunch of apartments including my grandparents and stole the various dogs, about 10 total, during a holiday when they knew people weren’t home in the mid 2000’s. Stole their beagle right from their house. Cops claimed they had information that people were stealing them to sell to unlicensed dog sellers since all the dogs targeted were the smaller cute dogs and they didn’t go after any of the larger dogs.Thieves knew which apartments to target since they cased the “Pet Relief Area” next to the apartment grounds.
I find the story kind of implausible. Why would thieves go to all the that kind of trouble to steal the least valuable items in those apartments? What is an unlicensed dog seller anyway? Is that what you call people selling dogs on Craig’s List?
It seems you’ve never heard of dog fighting rings. People do steal (and pretend to adopt from unwary rescue organizations) dogs to be used as bait dogs. If you don’t know what a bait dog is, you should google it. (warning for those with soft stomachs, don’t do this)
How do people steal dogs for that purpose qualify as a dog theft ring traveling from location to location on a 2 year cycle? Dogs go missing all the time. Sometimes they are stolen because someone wants a dog or for the purpose you mention, or even if there are still vivisectionists nefariously stealing dogs for experimentation, but none of that adds up to a ‘dog theft ring’.
^ This. Also, because dog fighting is highly illegal, I could see where “the fights” would have to move around a Lot … otherwise the police would stake out known fight locations and arrest people with dogs going in and out. I’ve heard that people gamble heavily on the outcomes, so there is a Lot of money to be made and all in cash.
Selling dogs, as long as either 1) you can get the chip out or 2) you are selling them someplace where people pay cash and don’t care about chips, is a thing One of the articles I listed about was about: Someone in Sacramento whose “missing dog” was found by someone who bought it for cash in a city in Mexico.
Wow. I do not doubt that dogs get stolen. They do. I doubt that there are enough dogs valuable enough support an organized ring of dog thieves. No matter how much an owner pays for a dog or how much they love them, without papers those dogs are not worth much. There are stupid people in the world, stupid enough to pay a significant amount of money for a dog without papers from a person who cannot be found again, but not that many people. People who train fighting dogs are not going to pay thousands of dollars for any dog used as bait.
You can ignore the cites given if you want to keep your doubts.
As stated in the first article cited, people will pay $600 for a dog from some street vendor in Mexico.
Most dogs do not have papers, and still cost thousands of dollars.
None of these dogs have “papers”, they are just assured by the owners of the company that they are bred with love and care.
There are plenty of stores that stock their dogs from puppy mills, taking a few dogs in on the side from more questionable sources isn’t exactly going to be a new moral low for them.
They can turn around and sell those dogs for thousands of dollars.
There are also breeders who people buy their dogs from, and it would not be difficult to throw in some dogs of unknown provenance in the mix.
As to whether or not there is a group or people traveling around, stealing dogs, and taking a couple years to return to the start, that’s hard to say, the only “evidence” for that is the loose pattern matching of the OP. But nothing that you have said here is accurate, at all, about the nature of dog theft, the value of dogs, or the potential for laundering a hot dog.
So now it is only puppies being stolen? And puppies without papers are selling for thousands of dollars? Could you please provide some documentation about that?