Dognappers have struck again. This time the victim is 39 year Kim Hodgson whose eight month old puppy was stolen.
Miss Hodgson, chief executive of East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, said that the dognappers demanded a £2,000 ransom for her puppy, named Blue, and threaten her with chilling text messages .
According to Miss Hodgson, who has 4 dogs including the stolen pup, said Blue was stolen from the garden of her £750,000 farmhouse near Sevenoaks in Kent.
She spent hours searching nearby fields and woods for her Weimaraner-cross pup before she called the police. Moreover, she put up 700 posters in neighbouring towns and villages urging anyone with information can contact her on her mobile .
Soon after Miss Hodgson received first of the seventeen menacing texts.
"They said that if I did not pay they would hurt my dog and just send back her collar. They kept saying they would phone me at 11pm – but then would not call. I believe this was to put up the ‘ante’ and keep me stressed. They wanted to control the situation - then the texts started getting more threatening," Hodgson said.
According to her, another message said, "Once upon a time there was four little doggies, then there was three, then two."
Miss Hodgson said, "The text messages have made me sick with worry. When I told police about Blue being stolen the first thing they said was, ‘It’s just a dog’. They said that to my face. I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t even want to give me a crime reference number until I demanded one."
"Nothing seems to be happening. They have the mobile number of the person who stole my dog but they have told me that it takes weeks to trace who sent the messages. I love my dog and just want Blue back my side."
The Kent police insisted that they were taking this crime seriously. A spokesman said, "She has been kept fully informed all along."
Figures show that dognapping is the fastest growing crime in the Britain with 40,000 owners being robbed each year. The dognappers can demand thousands of pounds and even sex from the owner to return their pet.
