Nicole Schwartz didn’t think twice about taking her English bulldog, Kobe, along for the ride as she made a quick trip to pick up some takeout at P.F. Chang’s.
Since Schwartz got Kobe in early February, the puppy had been her constant companion. He’d join her for drinks on the patio at Hotel Congress and chew up maps on road trips to the beach.
“He slept with me every single night,” Schwartz says. “A total cuddler. He went everywhere with me. We were inseparable.”
So she didn’t think twice about taking Kobe along to pick up her takeout order as Chang’s, at Campbell Avenue and River Road, which closed at 11 p.m. on Thursday, April 15.
It took only minutes to duck inside the restaurant and grab her food, but when she got back to her car, she saw the window had been rolled down. The car was unlocked.
Kobe was gone.
Some heartless douchebag had made off with her 4-month-old puppy.
Schwartz is terrified to imagine what could be happening to Kobe.
“I feel like the kind of person who would steal a dog probably doesn’t understand what a dog is,” Schwartz says. “And they don’t know how to treat a dog. And that’s the part I’m really scared about. He could be hurt. And that’s what breaks my heart more than anything.”
Schwartz has been a whirlwind of activity since Kobe’s disappearance. She’s contacted detectives with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the Tucson Police Department. She’s put up hundreds of fliers. She’s scoured pet stores and kept up a constant search on craigslist and Facebook.
She’s offering a $1,500 reward for the return of the dog, no questions asked: Kobe can be dropped off anytime at Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St.
Her only suspect: A man who was leaving the restaurant as she walked in and who was apparently in a white pickup truck that was parked next to her car.
Kobe was the sixth English bulldog to be stolen in the month of April, says Marsh Myers, public information for the Animal Cruelty Taskforce of Southern Arizona.
But that may be more of a freak coincidence than any kind of organized effort. Two of the dogs went missing during a burglary that made the news because the culprits were photographed speeding from the scene by a photo-radar camera.
They surrendered to police, but only one of the dogs was recovered.
“The second dog is still out there somewhere,” Myers says. “They either didn’t know what happened to it or weren’t going to tell.”
In another burglary episode, a missing English bulldog was later found wandering a nearby street. Whether the burglar(s) took the dog and later abandoned it or it got out on its own during the robbery remains unknown.
The half-dozen thefts are “an unusual coincidence, but we don’t have any evidence that they’re connected at this point,” Myers says. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any investigative leads.”
English bulldogs like Kobe require extra attention in Tucson’s desert, says Mike Duffey, a co-chair of the Animal Cruelty Taskforce of Southern Arizona who used to specialize in animal crimes as a Pima County Sheriff’s Department detective.
“You have to keep them inside, or they melt,” Duffey says. “There’s such a profound layer of fat under their skin that if they’re left out in the hot summer, they melt, and then those free-floating lipids throughout their system kills them. It stops up their kidneys and ultimately shuts down their heart.”
Schwartz was frustrated to learn that the parking lot at Joesler Village, where P.F. Chang’s is located, isn’t outfitted with security cameras.
“The Buffet, the dive bar that I work at, has cameras,” Schwartz says. “You’d think those guys would have more of a security system there. If they had outdoor cameras, we’d have a plate number. We would have seen him in the act.”
People who steal expensive dogs like Kobe (English bullies can cost in the neighborhood of $3,000) sometimes resell them, and sometimes use them to breed more dogs, Marsh says.
But the high price Schwartz paid for Kobe isn’t foremost on her mind.
“I don’t care about that,” she says. “I just want my dog back.”
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2010.
What the thieves did was wrong but
I’m not hearing one sentence about what you did wrong. lock your car.
Anon, fuck off. It’s not a crime to not lock your car. It is a crime to grab things that don’t belong to you. Have some fucking perspective, you victim-blaming idiot. I hope you don’t go outside without your chastity belt firmly in place, because if you ever get raped it will be your own damn fault, you shitbag waster of oxygen.
mr. meade,
I don’t think anon is female; therefor your post becomes the instantiate tell regarding your character.
Further, real tough guys don’t speak that way. Because they don’t have the need.
And if a real tough guy was having a bad day, or even year, and was generally really angry, and lost his temper, he still wouldn’t ever address a woman in that manner.
How pathetic.
Robert Alexander Dumas
I support Mr. Meade – this woman lost a companion that she loved – would you tell someone who just lost their spouse or had their child kidnapped that it was their own fault? My god. What an idiot.
Let me just add that Nicole says the door was unlocked by the thief, who forced the window down. My apologies if that wasn’t clear in the story.
i mis-read the part of article in question, i take back what I said – sorry if I caused any grief.
anon
Mr. Dumas,
Men can be raped, too. Men who get raped should have worn their chastity belts, as they are available for both sexes. Why someone who reads a publication that has Dan Savage’s column doesn’t know that is something I’ll allow others to explain, but I never identified Anon as male or female. Only stupid and a victim-blaming idiot.
Here’s a handy site to protect yourself: http://male.stockroom.com/Chastity-C206.as…
Anon, you still blamed the victim. Misreading or no, that’s what you did. Taking it back is a good idea, and I’m glad you did that. You may continue your anonymous life with much less guilt, hopefully as a better person.
mr. meade,
Not quite to the point of your gratuitous verbal attack, interesting bit of dissembling though.
Why don’t you forward all of this to your mother and ask her opinion?
And thank you for the safety suggestions, but I have long been amply protected by the use of a well practiced, shall we say much more conventional tool.
Robert Alexander Dumas
mr. meade,
Upon further consideration I would like to add that my sexual naivete astounded even me just now, but given a dozen chances, I wouldn’t have gotten there. Experience provides a purview and a set of assumptions. And I haven’t a clue who Mr. Savage is.
Robert Alexander Dumas
Let’s get back to commenting on the story. Any further comments on chastity belts or other off-topic items will be deleted. Thanks, everyone.
Dan Savage writes a column called Savage Love. It’s near the back of the Weekly and many other alternative newspapers across the country.
The moral of this story is that, when you’re out in public, you should never, ever let your dog out of your sight.
Same goes on the home front. In addition to the dangers of dog-napping, dogs left alone in yards can develop chronic barking habits that are very annoying to the neighbors.
can we get an update of any news on a found puppy?
It is against the law to leave a dog alone in a car in any season at any time of day. Apparently the police neither informed Ms. Schwartz of the law nor ticketed her. It is possible that someone who knew the law, saw the dog alone and decided to rescue Kobe.
Cantadora: Care to cite the law you refer to? ARS 13-2910 states that a person is guilty of animal cruelty if he “Intentionally, knowingly or recklessly leaves an animal unattended and confined in a motor vehicle and physical injury to or death of the animal is likely to result.”
That’s very different from what you said: “It is against the law to leave a dog alone in a car in any season at any time of day.”
It’s also very different than the circumstances with Kobe, who was left alone for less than five minutes around 11 p.m. on an April night.
It is definitely illegal to break into someone’s car and steal an animal that has a monetary value of $3,000. It’s also the move of a heartless douchebag. If someone thought Kobe was somehow in jeopardy, they should have called the proper authorities.
Trying to justify the theft of Kobe from a loving owner is a pretty rotten thing to do. Especially when the thief wouldn’t have “known the law,” as you put it. They would have instead been completely wrong about the law (as you appear to be) and, in fact, breaking the law.
What he said.
I hope Cantadora hasn’t liberated any dogs under this misguided belief. If I recall correctly, it’s only police or animal control officers who are allowed to enforce this law (i.e. breaking a window).
I think it is horrible that someone would steal a dog out of this woman’s car. I’m not blaming the victim here, but logically speaking (to me), it’s like leaving your wallet or handbag out in the open. And again, it is awful that this has happen to Kobe. I really hope she finds her baby. As for the person ranting about rape. Man, are you angry! Hello! Did this happen to you? Anon don’t apologize. You among the rest of the population, who probably thought, why would somebody leave a $3000 dog alone in the car? It is a question. Given, you probably should have worded your comment differently, it might be your age that shows your ignorance. I too have a dog , who’s not British but an American Bulldog, and I was told but several people at Puttin’ on the Dog event, keep that dog close to you and microchip him, someone might take him. My heart goes out to Kobe and his master.
It is a shame that Nicole lost her dog..hopefully she will get him back.
My comment is on “fat melting by heat”…ha ha ha ha. Man, if this were true everyone would be in for heat treatments to reduce fat after overindulging!..After googling heat stroke in dogs, you will find that heat stroke is more common in bull dogs because of two things…head shape and length of throat…they are unable to cool down as efficiently as other breeds.
Anybody else out there find alex dumass a ‘little’ arrogant?
I find him a wanna be academic who doesn’t really have it.
Maybe a dropout?