The Bad Old (Dog) Days Are Back

Last we left “dognapping,” it was serving as a soft and cuddly reminiscence about dire economic conditions in East Harlem during the tumultuous summer of 1977. But now that we take out our monocle and inspect more closely it seems to have become one of today’s leading economic indicators:

[S]everal weeks ago, dog-napping terror hit the Upper West Side. E-mails began circulating (one subject line: “DOGNAPPING attempts in NYC with RAZOR and RANSOM — get dogs ON LEASHES — happening on West Side”), and flyers were posted at dog runs and veterinary offices and pet stores (“COMMUNITY ALERT: DOGNAPPING attempts on the West Side”). Dog owners, particularly women with small dogs — said to be the prime target — began to panic.

A survey of Upper West Side dog runs and pet stores turned up various versions of the same story. “There’s a two-man team, with one in a gray hoodie on a bicycle who comes by and slices the leash with a razor, then goes away with the dog. The other guy calls you up later on and says, ‘Hey, I found your dog! What’s it worth to you?’ ” said Charlie Allen, the owner of Gotham Pups pet services, who was glumly watching two of his charges (Beezus, a mutt, and Delta, a yellow Labrador) romp across the dog run on West Eighty-first Street the other day. “It’s completely unpleasant.”

Most people were saying that the dognappers made their ransom demands by calling the number on a stolen dog’s tags. Either that or they waited for a reward sign to be posted. “I think maybe in this neighborhood there would be more purebreds and more people who would pay a ransom,” Jason Frix (Billy Bob, bullmastiff) said. “Crime increases in tough times.” People said there’d been dognappings in other nice neighborhoods. “I heard Chelsea,” someone said. “Also Battery Park City.”