SAN ANTONIO – Two bull terrier puppies are still missing more than a week after being stolen during what the owner had thought was going to be a legitimate sales transaction.
Breanna Canales said she had posted the puppies for sale on social media. She said a young man messaged her, saying he wanted to buy one for his mother and another for himself. He then asked that Canales bring the puppies to him.
Canales said her father told her to only go to a residence to make the transaction. But she said the address she was given turned out to be an apartment complex. Still, she and a friend met the supposed buyer and another young man in a parking lot April 28.
“They had a wad of money in their hands,” Canales said.
When she saw that, she thought it was the $1,250 she wanted for the pair.
“OK, at least they have money. It’s not too sketchy,” Canales said she thought to herself.
Canales said she gave each one of the men a puppy from a small crate in her vehicle.
As they were talking about them, Canales said, “Out of nowhere, they just broke, took off running.”
Canales said she and a friend tried chasing them, but they went in separate directions.
She said when San Antonio police had arrived, the suspects and the puppies had disappeared. But Canales said she recognized both of them and found them on Facebook.
“I know people who know them. I have their social media accounts and everything. It’s the exact same people,” she said.
Canales said she even found their addresses, but was warned by a friend who said: “Don’t go there by yourself. You’re going to get hurt if they see you there.”
Canales said the thieves were brazen.
“They’re posting my dogs on their Snapchat, still," she said.
Canales said she had hoped to use the money so she could go to a national cheerleading competition. As a result of the theft, she said she’ll have to start all over again to raise the funds. She said she and her father had hoped to sell one more dog.
“We’re afraid to right now,” Canales said.
A San Antonio police spokesman said there have been no arrests yet. He said police advise transactions be done at Safe Exchange Zones at every Police Department substation with surveillance cameras and officers nearby. He said be cautious of anyone not willing to go a substation.
Canales said if the family gets the puppies back, her father, an Army veteran who is 100 percent disabled, wants to donate one of them to be trained as a service dog.
Canales said the female puppy that was stolen along with her brother was “the sweetest girl out of all of them.”
“I cried for two hours after I got home,” she said. “I didn’t know how to handle it.”
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