I am being lazy. I just copied & pasted an email I had sent to some people:
I live in a fairly okay neighborhood, so I was leaving Ani and my GSD (who I assumed would bite anyone trying to enter the fence) outside in the mornings then coming home at lunch & crating them in the afternoons. Ani isn’t 100% housebroken and it is almost impossible for me to go home, let the dogs out, let them potty, let them back in and get back to work on time.
I came home on Tuesday afternoon at lunch to let them in. Well, Nico was in the fence but Ani was not. I talked to my neighbor who said that he had heard a commotion about 8, he came outside to find Nico by the fence, but Ani no where. Nico saw my neighbor and ran into the fence; neighbor says Nico acted very confused. I knew immediately someone opened the fence but thought it could have been a meter reader although I don’t see a meter reader going into a yard with a GSD and a pit bull but anyway…
I called into work, my friend came over and we searched for about 2 hours. We asked a couple people in the neighborhood if they had seen her, everyone told us to talk to Steve. Well, Steve has a reputation not only as a drug addict and possible drug dealer but also as a possible dog fighter. This guy was the one who asked me how much I wanted for Ani. I got bad vibes from him and told him she was not for sale. I told him she was fixed, which I thought would throw him off but he said he didn’t care. He also mentioned to me about 4 times without me asking him anything about it (I did not know this guy AT ALL) that he did not fight his dogs. He was very persistent about Ani but seemed to give up.
So in my search, I was talking to my neighbor down the road who was convinced this guy Steve stole Ani. My neighbor’s mother in law drove by and he asked her if she had seen a white pit bull to which she replied “I think I saw Steve with one this morning”. My boyfriend, who is an idiot, went over to this guy’s house convinced he didn’t steal my dog; he came back saying this guy seemed truthful (although my boyfriend had already been told Steve is a great liar). My boyfriend is an idiot, he always thinks the bad people are the good people, has really bad judge of character, incidentally he is the one who invited this guy Steve over for some beers *sigh*
The next day, I printed flyers up, handing them out. The reward was $400-I put in $200 my friend who loves pits & really likes Ani put in $200. I handed them to a couple people in the neighborhood, and I did hand one to Steve Keys, I told him “$400 reward no questions asked”. About 2 minutes later I get a phone call from someone saying they had “found” her. It was very obvious they didn’t have a flyer in front of them. He described her kinked tail to a T; he asked to meet at a local gas station. Me & my friend who had put in ½ the reward, and who is one tough lady, went to the gas station and waited for about an hour before he called. He called me about 4 times to make sure I was going to call the police, I said listen dude, I want my dog back, you said you found her so why would I call the police?
Guy shows up about ½ of an hour later. He waits until he is out of the car to call me, and asks for us to meet him in front of the store. There are about 5 other cars there, and they are all with him. I hear this is a sign of a dog fighting ring.
I see Ani and jeez I have never been so happy in my entire life to see one of my dogs. She is covered in motor oil which they say is to keep fleas off, she seems to be pretty okay, she doesn’t seem terrified of this guy, but she does crawl to the car. Gave him the reward, dumbarse me should have called Tracy (director of AS) to just go with me to meet this guy…but I didn’t even think of that, I was just so happy that they decided to give her back.
I have heard since I got her back that this NEVER EVER EVER EVER happens; I guess these people are probably small time guys. The guy who handed her off to me said that this $ was going to go toward his family.
I am so very thrilled to have her back; I do believe she is for sure staying with me forever!
Needless to say she will NEVER be allowed outside unattended and neither will my dogs since they now know I will pay $ to get them back. Someone was really looking out for this dog.
Other than the oil, she is the exact same, she wasn’t traumatized too badly and has no scars or marks on her. But then again they only had her one day. Once she got out of the car and realized she was home, her posture changed 100%!! It will take a while to get the oil off, I am using Dawn…
I could not believe that this could happen. I believe the police are also going to bust Steve for selling drugs. I told Tracy he might want to talk to the police and see if this Steve guy would turn on one of the bigger dog fighters (this guy is an idiot and I do not think he is running things), and perhaps he will be killed but it is not a big loss, that is a really mean thing to say and honestly he is the only person I would ever say that about. He is a scum bag and I hope he pays for stealing my poor Ani. And I hope he pays a lot more for all the dogs he has tortured.
I know you all don’t live in LR, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be careful!! I knew that dogs got stolen but figured it was a very rare occurrence. I am told now that it is very common and there are scams involving people stealing pit bulls for the reward $, I doubt this was the case here, but I heard they are running scams like that in FL & it is moving into other states.
And if you know anyone with a pit please pass this story along to let them know it DOES happen, I never thought in a million years it would happen to me but it did. I live in a nice, quiet family neighborhood. It can happen anywhere.
The joke now is “my pit bull is so vicious she allowed herself to be stolen”. It really isn’t funny..
People who do such things make me ill!!!!!!!!!!!!
