A Yorkie was dognapped. A man who hunted al-Qaeda came to the rescue.

Raquel Witherspoon had spent a frantic 24-hours searching for her daughter’s Yorkshire terrier, after making a shocking discovery. Footage from her doorbell camera showed a young woman with dyed-red hair creep onto her front porch, throw treats to Avery and then make off with the tiny dog.

Witherspoon’s 12-year-old daughter was distraught. Semaj relied on Avery for emotional support and could barely eat or sleep since he vanished. Suddenly, Witherspoon’s iPhone buzzed to life in her Maryland home that day after the pup disappeared in June.

In menacing texts laced with profanity and misspellings, someone said they had Avery and sent a video of the brown and black pup in a cage. Avery looked forlorn as he lifted his diminutive furry head to the camera.

The conversation was punctuated with a threat to kill the dog and a demand for ransom: “y’all not gettin y’all dog baxc y’all payin 1200 no funny’s.”

Witherspoon was the victim of a crime that appears to be on the rise across the nation: dognapping. Police generally don’t maintain statistics that separate stolen pets from other thefts, but the latest numbers available from an American Kennel Club affiliate that registers animals show dognappings increased 30 percent in the third quarter of 2022 over the same period the previous year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/12/maryland-yorkie-dognapped-rescue-team/