Figures show 150 dogs were stolen from owners in Kent in 2024

KentOnline / KMTV

Debbie Matthews, Co-founder of the Stolen ad Missing Pets Alliance joined The Kent Morning Show to give her reaction to the stats.

Transcript

00:00There's 130-odd dogs that are still missing out there, and if one dog is taken, it's too

00:05much. Those poor families.

00:08And Debbie, you know exactly what it's like to have your dog stolen. It happened to you

00:12back in 2006. It's unimaginable how that must have felt for you.

00:19That's why I'm still doing what I'm doing today, trying to get things right. But at

00:23least we have got a change in law now. We have got the Pet Abduction Act, which came

00:27into force in August last year. So hopefully as time moves forward, we will see more changes.

00:35But it's a devastating experience. It's heartbreaking. It affects the whole family. You don't eat,

00:41you don't sleep. You know, my two dogs were taken, so I wondered if they were still together,

00:46if they were being looked after, if they were warm, if they were being fed. I mean, it never

00:51ends, the worry.

00:53Yeah, and Debbie, I want to come on to talking about that new bill. But just before we do

00:58that, what was the sort of resolution with your dogs? You managed to get back with them

01:04again or what happened?

01:06Yeah, well, I was very, very lucky. I contacted Dog Lost, who were going back there. Now,

01:11if you can imagine what the web was like in 2006. 2006 wasn't very much around. And they

01:17had great advice for me, told me what to do. And because I've had a famous father, the

01:25idea was to go public, to tell people that my dogs had been stolen. And she said, no,

01:31keep quiet for a week, let them be sold on. You know, they're seven years old, they're

01:36neutered, they won't be any good to anybody. They'll be just for cash. They'll just want

01:40cash for them. So after a week, my father, who's Sir Bruce Forsyth, we went on live breakfast

01:47television and the first morning we did an appeal, we got Widget back, he'd been sold

01:51in a livestock market. Second morning, we did another appeal and we got Gizmo back and

01:57he'd been sold in a park, just with a man in a park. So, but when you see how many dogs

02:04are being taken, and this is back in 2006, you can't walk away from this and just leave

02:09it as it is when you can see that the police aren't doing enough for you and the microchip

02:15system isn't working. I had to keep going. And here I am still going.

02:22Absolutely. And I suppose one of the shocking things for me looking at these statistics

02:26in Kent last year, only 21 of the 154 stolen ended up being recovered. I mean, does that

02:33surprise you?

02:36Well, no, because I see every single day I'm working with Dog Lost and, you know, we're

02:41sharing dogs all the time. And there seems to have been another spate again, at the start

02:45of this year, which is worrying because with the Pet Abduction Act, we are seeing more

02:51action from the police. It was wonderful. You sent me through all your results from

02:55the police report, which we've never had such an in-detailed report before. And that's because

03:01of the Pet Abduction Act. Before, they were just categorised as property. So police could

03:08never give you an exact number or where the dogs were taken from. Now you can see that

03:1370 dogs were taken from home, which is one of the places we always warn people about.

03:17You think you're safe in your home and your garden, but that's the top places. So people

03:23have got to be really aware of it. And, you know, hopefully with the law as it spreads

03:29out, we'll be able to pinpoint across the country where the hotspots are so people are

03:34warned.

03:36How can a dog owner make sure their dog is safe in their own home? Because surely that

03:41is the place where the dog is the safest, at least you would think.

03:45Well, a lot of people, you just let your dog out the back garden. You may not have your

03:50door locked. Security cameras are very useful and also lights, automatic lights that come

03:57on at night time.

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