‘Your dog is dead, it was tasty’ – owner of stolen dog receives sick text message

‘Your dog is dead, it was tasty’

Distraught owner of stolen dog receives sick text message

Anton McNulty

A KILMEENA man whose pup was stolen from his van in Castlebar received a sick text message from the person he suspects of taking the dog. The text read ‘your dog is dead, it was tasty’.
Kieran Loftus’s eight-month-old Jack Russell/Corgi pup was stolen from his van when it was parked at Mulroy’s Garage on the Breaffy Road in Castlebar on June 29. Loftus, who is from Roe in Kilmeena, left his car for a matter of seconds to put some rubbish in a bin. When he returned the dog was gone. CCTV footage showed the theft, but the gardaí said the quality was not good enough to clearly identify the suspect.
However, the footage shows the man suspected of taking the pup getting into a lorry. However, when Mr Loftus confronted the owner of the lorry and the driver, they both denied any involvement.
Mr Loftus claims that since the theft, people have been trying to intimidate him not only by sending him the sick text message, but by poisoning another one of his dogs and stabbing another in the paw.
“One day when I was out looking for the dog, I left two doberdors – which are a cross between a labrador and a doberman – guarding the house. When I returned one of them was lying in a pool of blood having been stabbed in the paw … A day later the other dog was poisoned. She broke out in multiple wounds all over her body, but I took her to the vet and she is making a recovery.
“I believe I know who took the dog but I can’t prove it. The dog is missing for four weeks, and I recently got a text message from the owner of the lorry that said, ‘Your dog is dead, it was tasty’. I don’t often cry but I shed a tear when I read that. As far as I understand this is all happening in an effort to put me off looking for my dog,” he said.
The dog is microchipped, and if it is scanned by a vet, the dog’s status as stolen will be revealed. Mr Loftus believes that his dog was targeted because of its small size, and added that a number of similar dogs have been stolen recently.
While there has been no confirmed sighting of the pup, Mr Loftus is hopeful he will be recovered, as he has a distinctive appearance and would be easily identified.
“I have been chasing a few leads but I have had no success at all. He is a lovely dog, who came from a litter of one, which is very unusual. He was lucky to be alive because his mother was injured when she was pregnant and was not expected to recover. He is an unusual dog with a white sock and is white, tan and black in colour. It is very noticeable … If you saw him, he is easily recognisable and you could tell him apart from other dogs,” he concluded.

Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of Kieran Loftus’s pup is asked to contact Castlebar Garda Station on 094 9022222.