July 11, 2024, 6:43 am | Read time: 14 minutes

It was the worst week of dog owner Sandra Weber’s* life. Last year, her dog Stella* disappeared from her Weber’s property in Brandenburg. When the animal didn’t return even after days, doubts grew. Had Stella perhaps been abducted? Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in Germany. PETBOOK spoke to animal rights activists and the police about why and how often dogs are abducted and how likely it is that the owners will get their animals back.

However, Stella did not return, and no call came in. “I called the animal shelter and the police straight away that evening and contacted Tasso,” says Sandra. “The whole time, I thought  someone would find her at any time and bring her back.” Sandra waited and hoped. “I started to worry terribly. What if Stella was run over or stuck in the bushes? I was in a total panic and completely distraught.” Because Stella is worth a lot of money as a pedigree dog, Sandra had another scary thought: “Could my dog have been stolen and now be sold in Poland? You hear things like that all the time.”

*The editors have changed the names of the owner and dog at the protagonist’s request to preserve anonymity and prevent further attempts at theft.

Dog Abductions: Not Uncommon in Germany

Cases like Sandra Weber’s are not unique in Germany. Time and again, we read about dogs being stolen in broad daylight on the street. A classic scenario involves the abduction of dogs left on a lead outside supermarkets, as happened with Brutus, a brown and white Shih Tzu-Maltese mix, who was left unattended by his owner for just ten minutes. (“Süddeutsche Zeitung“, July 2022).

In autumn 2021, the disappearance of the miniature poodle Scotti, who had escaped and was simply taken away by a teenager, made headlines (“24hHamburg.de“, March 2022). Both cases ended well. Mongrel Brutus was discovered a short time later by a jogger in the park, and dwarf poodle Scotti was recognized by staff at the airport thanks to the efforts of his family, who put up countless wanted posters and even hired a private security service. The federal police intervened at the last minute to prevent his kidnappers from leaving the country.

Pet boom during the coronavirus pandemic triggered a rise in dog thefts

If you follow the media reports, you will notice that dog abductions were particularly frequent in 2021 and 2022. According to an article in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung“, animal rights activists ascribe this increase to the to the huge demand for pets during the coronavirus pandemic.  This led to shortages at many reputable breeders, and even some animal shelters reported a sharp drop in the number of dogs, cats and small animals.

Those who urgently wanted an animal ended up on waiting lists. The temptation in front of the supermarket is great. Unscrupulous dog dealers are also said to have deliberately stolen animals to abuse them as breeding machines and then make big money with the puppies. But have dog abductions in Germany really increased since then?

Is dog abduction really on the increase in Germany?

PETBOOK asked Tasso, Europe’s largest free pet registry. Not only can you register your pet there, but you can also place search ads and report found animals. Unfortunately, Tasso does not collect figures on how many pets are stolen, as Sonja Slezacek, Tasso’s press relations and internal communications officer, tells us. As no distinction is made between the reasons for the disappearance of missing animals, no corresponding statistics can be compiled. To her knowledge, there is also no separate item for stolen pets in the official police statistics, as these are included in the thefts.

An inquiry to several police stations in different federal states confirmed this. Kay Anders, media relations officer and police spokesperson for the Saxony police, replied to PETBOOK’s inquiry: “As animals do not have the legal capacity to become victims of an offense under the eighteenth section of the German Criminal Code (StGB), there are no corresponding statistics.” Therefore, A criminal offense does not exist, as according to the law, animals are considered “property” in Germany. A dog abduction would, thus, fall under theft or embezzlement at most.

For this reason, such cases are lumped together with car thefts, stolen wallets and stolen household items. According to the police spokesperson, an individual evaluation would be required to answer whether pet abductions have increased. Therefore, it is not possible to provide any figures.

Not every disappearance is theft

A PETBOOK inquiry to the German Animal Welfare Association (Deutscher Tierschutzbund e. V.) revealed this: There is no central recording of cases of abducted pets. It therefore remains unclear how high the number actually is, as well as the clearance rate. “Dog thefts are reported to us rather sporadically,” explains Lea Schmitz, spokesperson for the association. However, dog abductions were a significant problem in the UK in 2021. According to the organization “Doglist”, 465 cases of dog abduction were documented there. That is more than two and a half times as many abducted dogs as in 2019. “We could not and cannot observe this in Germany,” says Schmitz.

Schmitz points out that not every disappearance is due to theft. “In any case, people who think their pet has been stolen regularly contact our pet register Findefix,” says Schmitz. “In the end, it’s often not clear what’s really behind it. Ultimately, we can only speculate in many cases.” Cats, in particular, could have been run over and dogs could have escaped from the garden. Sandra Weber also believed this. But when no trace of her dog Stella appeared days later, Sandra became increasingly certain that someone must have taken her pet. After all, the dog is very friendly towards people.

“Stella is an adorable dog. She would have gone with anyone and even got in somewhere,” says Sandra, assessing her dog’s behavior. But anyone could have seen immediately where she belonged. “After a few days, I was sure someone must have intentionally taken her with them. She is also a very beautiful pedigree dog, and yet I don’t understand who would do something like that. Who deliberately causes so much suffering to the owners and the family? You leave behind fates and destroy lives. For me, this constant uncertainty was the worst thing. I blamed myself, lay awake at night, and cried. Not knowing whether you’ll ever see your dog again is terrible.”

What are the motives of dog abductors?

Dog abductions are said to mainly affect smaller modern breeds such as French Bulldogs, Maltese, Pugs, Chihuahuas, Miniature Poodles and Jack Russell Terriers. Dealers can often make several thousand euros per animal with puppies of these coveted dogs. In fact, the case of the miniature poodle Schoki, who was stolen from outside a supermarket in Munich, made the headlines in early 2021 (“tz.de“, March 2021). His owner finally found him on an online platform where the animal was being offered for 1,300 euros.

“You occasionally hear about dogs that disappear while tied up outside supermarkets,” says Lea Schmitz from the German Animal Welfare Association. Be it planned or out of a spontaneous impulse.” In some cases, it could also be a well-organized, criminal business, the spokesperson told PETBOOK. Stealing puppies or pregnant bitches is very lucrative, as the trade in pedigree dogs is booming. This can be seen, for example, in the trade in puppies from abroad.

Are pedigree animals being sold at a high price?

The assumption that animals are stolen to sell them on for high sums of money is not only true for dogs. “When pedigree cats disappear, people sometimes fear that they are being sold for a lot of money,” says Sonja Slezacek from Tasso. “With other cats, there is often concern that an animal hater who wants to harm the cats is on the loose. We can’t prove either. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen in individual cases.”

Slezacek also points out: “Regarding the theft of pedigree animals, I spoke to my colleagues at Tasso Animal Welfare some time ago. They pointed out that it’s quite a costly procedure to specifically capture pedigree animals to sell them at a high price.” Cats, in particular, are often not particularly trusting of strangers. Compared to this, it seems that a lot of money can be made with puppies and kittens bred abroad using the cheapest methods that violate animal welfare, which are then sold in Germany.

Are animals being stolen for animal testing laboratories?

There are always rumors that animals are stolen for animal testing laboratories. But Slezacek believes this is unlikely. “This field came to a standstill decades ago, as there is clear legislation stating that only animals that have been bred specifically for this purpose may be used in laboratories.”

Often it’s theft instead of abduction

A PETBOOK inquiry to the Munich animal shelter revealed that actual kidnappings, where animals are lured onto buses by their captors, are very rare. “However, we often have cases of neighborhood disputes or trouble after break-ups, where people give away their neighbors’ or exes’ pets to cause animal owners distress,” reports Kristina Berchtold from the Munich animal shelter. “But we can usually get them back quickly.”

According to Berchtold, what from time to time people find animals and simply keep them. “Cats are even literally fed,” she explains. “People then say: ‘But they chose me. They came on the terrace, imploring me to stroke them; they want to stay. This happens quite often and is a problem because people don’t report the find or aren’t even aware that they are wrongfully capturing the animal.”

Sven Fraaß, a certified biologist and press spokesman for the Hamburg Animal Welfare Association, also confirms: “Occasionally, lost cats are kept at home by the finders and not reported to official authorities such as animal shelters or the police.” This is particularly a problem if the animal is not chipped, as even a visit to the vet cannot identify the former home. “If such an animal later escapes again and ends up with us, it sometimes turns out that it has been reported missing for months or even years,” the animal rights activist told PETBOOK.

How likely is it that dog abductions will be solved?

When asked, neither the police nor animal rights activists were able to tell us how often abduction cases are solved. Ultimately, success also depends heavily on concrete evidence, which is rather rare in dog abductions. In most cases, no one notices when a stranger simply unleashes a dog and walks off with it. If the theft is planned, the perpetrators usually proceed in a calculated manner and may even take the dogs abroad.

In contrast, the chances of recovering an occasional theft or lost animal are better. This is because the perpetrators are usually still in the immediate vicinity. So, there is at least a chance someone will recognize the dog. This was the case with Sandra Weber.

How Stella came back home

When it became clear that Stella had not simply run away, Sandra launched a major appeal on all social media and put up posters in the area. However, no decisive clue materialized. “It was a real drama,” Sandra remembers. “Stella was a real dream dog. At some point, I got to the point where I thought she would never come back. So, I decided to let our dog trainer know why we were no longer coming to lessons.”

The dog trainer lives a few villages away. When she heard about the case, she also launched a search on social media and shared photos of the missing dog. She has a large network through her dog school – and this is exactly what ultimately led to success: someone had taken Stella over the fence into the trainer’s front garden in a cloak-and-dagger operation. The dog was completely filthy and scared the next morning. “She had no harness on, was completely distraught, dirty, and had fleas,” says Sandra. “Stella was completely out of it. It took weeks for her to get back to her old self.”

We will probably never know exactly what happened. “We suspect that she was locked up somehow and was probably not properly fed or not fed at all. Perhaps someone deliberately hid her at first because they feared the dog would be recognized. I therefore assume that someone must have deliberately taken her. Whether for sale, breeding, or to keep privately is unknown.”

More on the topic

Lost or abandoned You’ve found an abandoned pet in the street? What you should do now

Office dogs, puppies, training problems The sobering result after the dog boom

Opinion ‘A dog from the animal shelter? Out of the question for me!’

How do I protect my dog?

It is difficult to prevent a long-planned and well-organized dog abduction. However, most dog abductions seem to be opportunistic or lost property thefts. To prevent these, Sonja Slezacek from Tasso advises never leaving your pet unattended anywhere. “If you are alone and need to go shopping, you should always take your dog home first, where they will be safe. For example, it can always happen that someone teases the dog or feeds them something poisonous or inedible in front of a store.” Leaving dogs unattended in your garden could also lead to someone taking advantage of the situation and stealing the animal. In addition, you should not carelessly hand over your animals to a stranger.

Have dogs chipped and registered

In principle, it is important to identify your pet with a microchip and then register it in a pet register such as Tasso. “These ensure that lost animals can be clearly assigned to their owners at any time if they are found. This works reliably even after many years,” explains Slezacek.

Using social networks

Owners of missing animals can also contact the animal shelters in your area, advises Mareen Esmeier, head of the Berlin animal shelter. “If an animal that arrives at our shelter is chipped and registered, we at Tierheim Berlin will inform the owner immediately. If we can’t find an owner, we post these animals twice a week on Facebook.” Other platforms and apps also make it possible to post or share missing animal reports. This creates access to a huge network of people who keep their eyes open and report sightings.

In the end, precisely these calls led to a happy ending for Sandra and her dog Stella. Apparently, the dog trainer’s search requests via social media had exerted such pressure on the perpetrator that they returned the animal. However, wanted notices and flyers can also mobilize people. “Even now, after such a long time, someone still calls me and says: ‘I’ve seen a white female dog here’,” says Sandra. “There are still notes left somewhere that we’ve forgotten to take down.”

Tracker for more safety

Sandra has become more cautious since the incident. “I’m now very careful and make sure she’s alone as little as possible. When we’re not there, the dog is no longer in the garden because we’re afraid that someone might come and take her out of the garden. She also wears a tracker now.” This lets you locate the dog and see where the animal is by mobile phone. It is not protection against dog abduction, as the tracker can be easily removed. However, it does offer additional peace of mind, as it at least provides a clue to the dog’s whereabouts.

“Since then, I’ve been more reassured because I can see where Stella is at any time. I hope to reach people with my story and raise awareness of the issue. Because I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on any dog parent!”