{"id":481548,"date":"2026-10-01T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481548\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T11:51:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:51:00","slug":"san-francisco-police-snatch-stolen-pup-back-from-thief-in-two-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481548\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Police Snatch Stolen Pup Back from Thief in Two Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week a woman called the San Francisco Police Department<\/a> (SFPD) after her labradoodle went missing.<\/p>\n

At around 5:45 p.m. on September 23, responding officers arrived at Lombard and Webster Streets.<\/p>\n

The owner told officers that she briefly tied her dog outside a daycare so she could run inside, but by the time she got back her dog named Easton was gone.<\/p>\n

“How long ago did this happen?” the cop asked her.<\/p>\n

“In the last 30 minutes,” she said.<\/p>\n

An Investigation is Launched\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cops immediately started searching the nearby areas and alerted other cops in the department about the situation. They also spread photos of the labradoodle.<\/p>\n

Police contacted the SFPD Real Time Investigation Center (RTIC) and the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) for assistance. Additionally, they viewed surveillance footage from a local business to see if they caught anything.<\/p>\n

Luckily, the search party didn’t last long. Only about two hours after Easton was stolen, authorities found the thief and the Labradoodle on Golden Gate Avenue, thanks to the RTIC.<\/p>\n

Easton Reunited with His Owner<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Easton was brought back to his owner at Tenderloin Station.<\/p>\n

In a reunion photo shared by the SFPD, the owner is seen tightly holding her beloved dog.<\/p>\n

It is unclear what the thief’s motive for stealing the labradoodle was, nor has he yet been publicly identified.<\/p>\n

If he is charged with and convicted of petty theft (if valued under $950) or grand theft (if valued over $950), he could face criminal fines up to $1,000 under California’s Penal Code.<\/p>\n

Dog Theft on the Rise?<\/p>\n

According to Lancaster Puppies, dog theft in the U.S. is not uncommon.<\/p>\n

In 2024 approximately 2 million dogs were stolen across the nation.<\/p>\n

Chances of finding a lost dog are not usually high \u2014 sadly, only around 10-23% of dogs are returned to their families. An even smaller number of thieves face criminal penalties, with only 1-5% being charged.<\/p>\n

“On top of resale, some stolen dogs tragically feed into illegal fighting rings or are exploited in unethical ways. This grim reality further stresses the need for vigilance from dog owners nationwide,” Lancaster Puppies’ report<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n

Yet some data suggest the frequency of dog theft is increasing. A study by AKC Reunite found that across the last five years, there’s been a 34% rise.<\/p>\n

If you want more stories like this, follow Guessing Headlights<\/a> on <\/a>Yahoo<\/a> so you don’t miss what’s coming next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week a woman called the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) after her labradoodle went missing. At around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[46331,155236,188776,151974,101,103,102,18816,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-481548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-drug-market-agency-coordination-center","tag-labradoodle","tag-lancaster-puppies","tag-rtic","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-police","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}