Stolen Dog Recovered After Two Years

Usually, you hear dogs will scare away would-be intruders, unless it’s your dogs they’re after.

“My window had been pried open,” Jennifer Gleason said. “And the dogs were gone.”

When someone broke into Jennifer Gleason's home in Canton, Georgia, the only things missing were her two purebred pugs. She filed a police report and started a search that lasted nearly two years.

“One of the animal control officers told me there’s been a rash of small dogs being stolen and sold,” Gleason remembered. “I never thought I’d see them again.”

Then, last week, a phone call: “My mother screamed, ‘Jenny, Jenny, they found Cupcake!’”

The female pug was discovered abandoned on the side of the road by two Carrollton sisters. Melissa and Melinda didn’t want to use their last names, because they’re also dog owners and are afraid they could be targeted.

“I was led to her,” Melissa said. “My husband said he saw a pug on the side of the road and I went looking for her.” Melissa finally found Cupcake at the end of an abandoned road. She was covered in fleas, missing patches of hair, and had lost 15 pounds.

When the sisters took Cupcake to the veterinarian, they asked for a microchip scan. That scan came up with Jennifer’s name. The two groups quickly planned a reunion over Labor Day weekend.

“I was emotional,” Melinda said. “I was crying. She was crying, and Cupcake was like, ‘What’s going on?”

Randi Tucker, from the Southeast Pug Rescue and Adoption (SEPRA), said when certain breeds gain popularity, and price, they can also become targets:

"A lot of times because they're purebreds, they're valuable. They can be put into puppy mills, which are solely for the purpose of breeding puppies."





That’s why Tucker says microchipping your dog is so important: “Whether lost or stolen, it will help you find your dog.”

Because stolen dogs are sometimes sold at flea markets or in classified ads, she also warns you should have new dogs scanned to make sure they don’t belong to someone else.

Meanwhile, police are still looking into Jennifer Gleason’s case. Jennifer said she’s been told other nearby dog owners suspect they, too, might have been targets. Canton police say there have been no other police reports filed in that area.

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