ohmidog!

Laika, a Siberian husky “dog-napped” by a well-meaning passerby from the front of a Fort Greene shop where she was left tied last month,  has inspired a new bill that would make dog-napping a crime in New York. 

Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, who represents part of Fort Greene, wants to make sure pet-napping is taken seriously by the law, the New York Times reports.

Lentol’s media coordinator, Amy Z. Cleary said that under current law, stealing a dog is treated the same as stealing a VCR. Society, she said, has evolved to the point where a pet is considered a member of a family, and the assemblyman wants the law to reflect that, she said.

The bill aims to raise dog and cat-napping to a Class E felony with two years of jail time if convicted.

If a dog-napper aims to sell the animal for scientific research or for malicious purposes, such as for use in dog fighting, the crime would be upgraded to a Class D felony, under the bill, with four years of jail time if convicted.

The assemblyman is most concerned about those who would sell the animals for scientific research,  Cleary said. The National Association for Biomedical Research says 97 percent of all animals used in lab tests come from breeders or lab animal dealers.  About 66,000 dogs are used in scientific research yearly.

Some Internet commenters have expressed concern that the law could end up snagging animal rescuers, but Cleary said the assemblyman is working to address those concerns.

The couple who took Laika, Giusseppe Francis Leonardo and his wife, apparently thought she had been abandoned after she spent several hours tied up outside a shop. The dog was returned to its owner.

The Brooklyn Paper is taking credit for reuniting the elderly dog with her owner. Leonardo, who uses a wheelchair, confessed to taking the dog in the comments section of a story about the case. Surveillance video had captured images of a man in a wheelchair taking the dog.