Dognapper swipes pet on busy sidewalk
A quick trip to the store turned into a nightmare for a Brooklyn man when he discovered his pooch had been dognapped while tied up outside.
The 31-year-old owner, who did not want to be named out of fear of retribution, said he walked into a Crown Heights bodega near the corner of Classon Avenue and Prospect Place on Monday shortly after 3 p.m. to get lunch and left his spaniel mix tied up to a bike rack outside for “five minutes.”
When he came back outside, the pup was nowhere to be found.
“This was evil… I could not imagine someone stealing a life,” the owner said Thursday morning by phone.
Surveillance video obtained by the owner shows Bo patiently waiting for his owner to return when a woman walks up, looks around and assesses the situation, and decides to untie the leash and walk away with the 5-year-old dog.
The owner maintains he was not in the store any longer than five minutes and even popped out mid-way while he was waiting for his lunch to make sure Bo was still there and doing all right.
“I’ve been devastated, I’ve been crying my heart out, I’m a big tough guy, an ex-football player, and I’ve just been bawling over this,” the distraught owner said.
“Just thinking about Bo and where he’ll end up has just been rocking me to the core.”
The owner, who is a high school history teacher and tutors underprivileged kids over the summer, has even taken Bo to China for a year for a teaching gig.
“I’m inseparable from him … he’s like my baby, I spend pretty much every moment that I’m home with him. He sleeps in my bed, he’s like my kid.”
The two had just got done playing at Prospect Park at the time of the dognapping—one of Bo’s all-time favorite things to do.
The owner said Bo has a congenital heart problem and is on special heart medication to help his condition.
He said he wants Bo returned, no questions asked, as soon as possible and even has a reward on the table for information leading to Bo’s safe return home.
He asked anyone with information to contact him at 917-983-2815 or by email at PleaseFindBo@yahoo.com