LOCAL dog owners suspect a dognapping gang is responsible for the disappearance of a large amount of dogs from the Orange area over the last six months.
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The gang seems to be primarily targeting purebred dogs including labradors and golden retrievers.
The Central Western Daily has run eight missing dog advertisements in March alone, double the number reported missing during the same period last year.
Samantha Webster’s four-year-old son Jacob was devastated by the loss of the family’s two maltese shih tzus, which disappeared on separate occasions over a three-month period.
Ms Webster described Mac and Meg as gorgeous dogs that looked like purebreeds.
Mac disappeared from outside the family’s house in November while Meg went missing in January.
“It seems to be that something very odd is happening for so many dogs to disappear around the same time,” Ms Webster said.
“The first time it happened I was with Jacob in hospital and when we got home the next day Mac was gone.”
Ms Webster said she’d do anything to get her dogs back.
“I can’t understand how a loyal dog could just vanish ... the public needs to be made aware of what’s going on,” she said.
Ms Webster said there were a number of rumours circulating as to the fate of the missing dogs.
“I have personally searched all over and found just one lead; apparently a man from Wollongong has been stealing dogs from Wellington, Orange and Bathurst but that’s all I’ve heard,” she said.
Kathy Thomas still has no idea who took her much-loved golden retrievers Monty and Wentworth, who disappeared from Mayfield Vineyard in mid-February.
“I never would have imagined that this could have happened to my dogs,” she said.
“I’m determined to do whatever I have to in order to investigate where these dogs have gone.
“Obviously a value has been placed on these dogs and I want to find out exactly what’s going on.”
Police were unavailable for comment.
