BONITA BEACH, Fla. — “Me and my friends actually stole your dog for some money.” That’s the text Holly Murphy received after losing her dog at a regional dog park. The individual, who called themselves “John”, was requesting for $1,000.
Holly Murphy is vacationing in Southwest Florida. She took her dogs to the Bonita Beach Dog Park Saturday afternoon for a peaceful day. However, it developed into a problem when her dog, Kobe, went missing out on. She believes he got startled by thunder and fled.
“We’re 20 hours from home. We’re here visiting from Kansas City, and so he doesn’t know the area, and just him being lost, especially in a new environment, was really, really emotional,” said Murphy.
Murphy searched the beach and asked everybody if they’d seen a red Shiba Inu. Johanna Hueber chose to help Murphy after hearing she was from out of town.
“You don’t want to go through that alone, especially if you’re not from here. You have no support network down here,” said Hueber.
Hueber published images of Kobe with Murphy’s telephone number on the “Dogs of Bonita Beach” Facebook page.
Within minutes, somebody connected, stating they had the dog, however they desired money.
Murphy asked the individual to send out images of the dog, however they would refrain from doing anything till she paid. That’s when Hueber recommended calling the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
“I was like, this is not okay, like if they really have your dog and they want money, like no. We’re not paying money. We’re gonna find them,” said Hueber.
LCSO got here and even flew drones to help discover Kobe. Seven long hours later on, a couple lastly discovered him in the mangroves.
“It was so awesome, I just kinda like unreal. I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t have much emotion because I was just so— after that many hours of intense anxiety, I was just super relieved,” Murphy said.
ABC7 called the telephone number that was texting Murphy, however we received no action.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has actually not said if they’ve made any arrests.
