The owner writes in that his dog Eloise was taken yesterday morning at 5 a.m. from in front of the Olympic Grocery at 13th Street and First Avenue ... He had gone in for a quick moment and left Eloise out front. He placed a "missing dog" ad on Craigslist and the Voice.
He received a response from the Craigslist ad around yesterday afternoon. The e-mailer included a detailed description of the person who may have Eloise. This is what she wrote:
I am certain I saw your dog today!
A man was walking her down 1st or 2nd avenue around 11th street. My dog wanted to say hi to her and he told me he found her tied up outside a store. He thought she'd been abandoned. She was scared, but physically ok.
He was clearly not in his right mind (it was noon and he said he'd just woken up and was up stealing dogs at 5 am). He said he'd called the number on the tag - 311, but no one picked up. He was trying to let the dog find her way home. He was a tall white man with dark hair and a large tattoo of a bird on the inside of one of his forearms. I would say he was in his 40s or 50s (but I'm not good at telling peoples ages).
He said if he couldn't find the owner, he wanted to keep her. I tried to convince him to call 311 again because they'd have record of her owner and he said he would. I want to stress that this man was clearly not in his right mind but I do not think he would hurt the dog, he really seemed to like her and wanted to come up with a name for her if he couldn't find the
owner.
Here's more information...