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Dognapping At Berkeley Humane Society Was Inside Job

BERKELEY (KPIX) -- It appears that a dognapping case in the East Bay was an inside job.

"Yesterday morning, around 8 a.m., we had a volunteer who was not scheduled to work come in and steal one of our dogs," said Morgan Pulleyblank, Berkeley Humane Society's Director of Communications

In fact, the whole incident was captured on camera.

The Berkeley Humane Society supplied KPIX 5 the video, which shows the person in question stealing six-month-old Ribbon. She is a Pit Bull mix.

Pulleyblank said the staff was shocked and saddened.

"This is an unprecedented act, event that we have never had anything like this happen before," he said.

The police were called, press briefings organized and social media alerted. Berkeley Humane wanted to get the word out to everyone to be on the lookout for Ribbon.

"We'll be reviewing our volunteer security protocols as well in light of this" Pulleyblank promised.

Then suddenly, late Monday afternoon, the entire day took an unexpected happy turn. Someone returned Ribbon to a neighboring shelter who scanned her chip and identified her as the stolen dog. Ribbon was safe.

It wasn't the volunteer who brought her back.

"No. It was somebody else," says Pulleyblank.

As for the future of the volunteer who allegedly took Ribbon?

"We still haven't heard anything from her," said Pulleyblank. "She is going to be terminated as a Berkeley Humane volunteer, obviously."

Happy endings are rare in these circumstances and Berkeley Humane says they are just glad to have Ribbon back.

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