And one bad day your dog disappears, and you call him, yelling, everywhere... and immediately you file a complaint, because you're sure they took him away, because you know he would never leave on his own... and the police tell you that these things happen, that they will look at it, as soon as they can... and you start hanging posters, on posts, social networks and WhatsApp groups, as many as you can, and soon you realize that finding it It basically depends on you, your commitment, your strength, your desire...
And what's more, after a few days, just when you're most nervous, most in need of a clue and hope, someone calls you and tells you that he just saw him, your dog, that he's sure it's him, that a A family that works from street market to street market has just offered it to him, for one hundred euros, but that the purchase has to be closed now, because these people run away, to another street market, and that he has no money... and you go and do a bizum, running, because there is no time to waste...
"And then he goes and laughs at you, that guy, how come you send money just like that to a stranger," says Xènia Martínez, "it's just that she was desperate... Betis was taken away on August 2, from patio of the house, in Can Gorday, in La Bisbal del Penedès, with nine months, and the Mossos told me that they had many cases, that they steal many Chihuahuas because they are trusting and are doing well to breed. You immediately see that everything depends on you! so I keep putting up posters, I'm attentive to the purchase-sale announcements, I keep looking for him yelling, in case Betis is being held in a nearby house. I'm still desperate, really."
"That scammer called me too," says Anna, from a farmhouse in the Garraf natural park, "but, well, I reacted well, I asked him for photographs, proof...". Bela disappeared on June 17. Anna and her family are sure that she was stolen, that there was no way she would have left on her own. “She is a very affectionate border collie. She is four years old. She has always been with us. Someone who knows us broke the chain on the door and took her away. I filed a complaint, went to the veterinary school, hung posters everywhere, got into social networks... Fortunately, good people also appear, people who want to help you, who send you photos of other border collies that could be them. .. That's why I don't stop, because I have the impression that if I don't give myself up to the search for Bela, nobody will try to help me, nobody will notice Bela. I'm doing everything I can."
“I even did a campaign with the delivery guys in the area. Good people also show up! –Míriam Fernández intervenes–, but there comes a time when you have to stop, to move on from the duel, to turn the page”. Olivia disappeared from a house in the Els avets urbanization, in Rubí, on November 18. “Now I can explain it without crying, thanks to therapy. It was like losing a family member. And the Mossos gave us good advice to avoid scammers, but then we never heard from them again. It is that they treat the theft of a dog as that of a mobile ”.
“It is difficult to turn the page,” say Xavi López and Deborah Sebastián. Uncertainty does a lot of damage. As if a child was taken from you." These days mark two years since Baloo's disappearance. That afternoon Xavi and Deborah entered a block of flats in the Sants neighborhood. The chihuahua ran up the stairs. They never went back to veil. The case had a great impact. More than 11,300 people signed a manifesto so that the police of the Generalitat and the City Council really investigate this disappearance. “If the police had been concerned, if they had called the flats... In the end, everything depends on your efforts and luck. Institutions do not give these issues the importance they have. They treat them like any robbery."
Sources from the Foundation for Advice and Action in Defense of Animals (FAADA) and the Animalist Party with the Environment (PACMA) explain that the legislation recognizes that dogs are sentient beings, but that the legal regime of things. So the criminal consequences of taking an animal valued at less than 400 euros are lukewarm. It is a minor crime, such as stealing a mobile phone by mistake. In fact, the Mossos do not have specific statistics on dog thefts. The thieves usually intend to resell the young, dedicate them to begging or get sparring partners for fights.
“In the end, everything depends on the goodwill of the agents involved –they add in the animal organizations–. In addition, local administrations should get more involved. In most cases they even check if the corpses collected on the roads have a chip that identifies them”. In any case, hope should never be lost. “My mother was robbed of Candy when she left her for a moment at the door of a supermarket in the Fort Pienc neighborhood – says Rubén Mouriz – and two weeks later she was found abandoned in l'Hospitalet! she was identified thanks to her chip. On the posters we put that she needed mediation ... maybe that helped ”. The truth is that it took Candy a few days to compose herself. She “had a hard time adjusting when she came back, even doing her needs when she was walking, but she's fine now! and my mother has not left her at the door of the supermarket again ”.
In addition, a few days ago the Civil Guard reported the arrest of a man suspected of defrauding at least a dozen owners of missing dogs from all over Spain, of making them believe that they had offered to buy them, but that he did not have the money, that if They sent him a hundred or two hundred euros... Once the scam was over, he used to make fun of his victims.
