Pet owners are being urged to “be alert” after police figures showed more than 23,000 dogs have been stolen in the UK over the last 10 years.
Dog theft victim Sarah Rodgers told Sky News of the “devastating and particularly cruel crime” which left her family heartbroken after their husky was stolen last year.
An estimated 1,808 dogs were stolen across the UK in 2024, analysis of Freedom Of Information requests to police forces by Direct Line Pet Insurance also revealed.
Rottweilers saw the highest rise in thefts – a 180% year-on-year increase – followed by Border Collies and Chihuahuas.
Ms Rodgers explained the moment her dog vanished.
She told Sky News: “Diesel is our family husky. It was an ordinary evening in October last year and I let our dogs out to go into the garden for a wee.
“The other dogs came back. Diesel never returned from the garden and I haven’t seen him since.
“The impact that it has, not only on the dogs but the families, the suffering that this causes. It’s just devastating.”
Sarah Rodgers said the impact of her dog’s disappearance had left her family heartbroken
She said it was a “particularly cruel crime” and she had watched her daughter cope with the “heartbreak over her best friend being stolen”.
Ms Rodgers added: “We went out into the woods, at the back of our home, and we found a camp which had been built by a person sleeping out with a fire pit.
“We firmly believe he was stolen by this person.”
Beverley Cuddy, the editor of Dogs Today magazine, called for more action to tackle thefts
Beverley Cuddy, the editor of Dogs Today magazine, believes more can be done to tackle dog thefts.
She told Sky News: “It’s seen as a low risk, high reward crime for these criminals. They are stealing dogs that are members of people’s families – they’re holding them to ransom in a lot of cases or they’re monetising them to take them to be breeding slaves.
“It really is something that sadly the modern pet owner needs to be alert to.
“We also need something that makes it more difficult to monetise these dogs. Some way of taking the pound signs out of the equation.”
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Over the past 10 years, 23,430 dogs have been reported stolen to police, with 5,005 (21%) being returned.
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The Pet Abduction Act came into effect in May last year, making pet theft a criminal offence in England and Northern Ireland, punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.
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