ohmidog!

The New Yorker reports that a dognapping scare recently hit the city’s Upper West Side — leading to warning posters, email alerts, rumors and panic

“DOGNAPPING attempts in NYC with RAZOR and RANSOM—get dogs ON LEASHES—happening on West Side,” read the subject line of one email warning.

Although there was no mention of police confirmation, the “Talk of the Town” piece said various rumors included a two-man team at work, one of whom goes by on a bicycle, slices the leash with a razor, then pedals away with the dog — no small drive-by feat when you think about it. Later, the second man calls with a ransom demand.

Other theories were that dogs were being taken to supply research labs, or being used for dogfighting dogs to practice on. Most of the dogs, according to the rumors at least, were small purebreds.

“The thinking used to be that a dog would provide security, not require it,” the piece begins. “But this was before Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, went missing, in 2004 … It was before Trouble, Leona Helmsley’s white Maltese, inherited, in quick succession, twelve million dollars, a series of death threats, and a six-figure bodyguard detail. It was before the former Post publisher Ken Chandler and his wife responded to the disappearance of their blond dachshund, Gus, by hiring a publicist and a private detective. And it was before the subject of the Secret Service’s future canine charge became a national fixation.”