Vancouver police are investigating after a woman allegedly dog-napped a French Bulldog from a downtown tattoo parlour as the animal’s owner stood just metres away.
In a statement, the dog’s owners Shaughnessy Keely and Kyle Otsuji said Chloe, a 10-month old French Bulldog, was with them at The Fall tattoo shop on Seymour Street when a woman asked to pet and hold the animal.
“While this was going on one of the artists brought down his client and needed Shaughnessy to ring him through the till,” said Otsuji. “She told the girl she would be a second and went not even ten feet away to the cash register.”
Otsuji said the woman then inched towards the door while holding the dog.
“Once she was close enough to the door she made a run for it and jumped into a black car with no license plate and sped off,” he said. “Shaugnessy and her coworkers ran after it but couldn’t catch up.”
A surveillance video of the alleged incident appears to show a woman wearing a pink tank top, a sheer white cardigan, blue jeans, and a pair of black boots approach Keely and the dog.
She then appears to make her way closer to the entrance while viewing some of the artwork in the shop, then opens the door and begins to run with the dog in her arms.
A group of employees behind a store counter then run out of the shop, appearing to chase the woman.
The incident happened Thursday night at around 7 p.m. and Chloe’s owners and friends of the pair have since launched an online campaign to find the suspected dog-napper.
The surveillance video had been shared more than 1,400 times on Keely’s Facebook page as of Saturday afternoon.
VPD spokesman Randy Fincham would only confirm police are investigating the incident, but said there is no other information to share at the moment.
Chloe is a white French Bulldog with a patch of black fur covering her left eye and ear and weighs 19 pounds, according to her owners.
