A Bronx man is reaching out for public help finding his four bulldogs he claims were stolen by his dog walker who was watching them while he was out of town last weekend.
"I've been single for nine years. So I've had my dogs for seven years," Eusebio Baez told 1010 WINS. "You can just imagine what my dogs mean to me."
Baez said that his three French bulldogs—Churro, Mocha and Rosie—and his English bulldog Banksy are family to him, and he was shocked to receive a call from his dog walker on Sunday claiming that the animals were no longer in his apartment. According to Baez, he rushed home to Riverdale and found that neither the pooches nor their leashes and harnesses were inside.
After calling the police to file a report, Baez said he looked at Ring camera footage with investigators that showed the man in his apartment hallway with the dogs on Saturday. When speaking to cops, Baez said that the dog walker claimed he couldn't remember if he dropped the dogs off or not.
"He kept changing his story when he spoke to the officer," he said. "And he's out free, walking, doing whatever he wants, you know. And my dogs are still missing."
The animals were last seen in Van Cortlandt Park late on Saturday afternoon. Baez's neighbor told him that he saw the dog walker, who appeared to be drunk.
"And that person stated that he was so intoxicated that you can smell it through his pores, and she didn't understand why somebody with four dogs was that intoxicated."
Baez fears his dogs—which he claims are worth more than $30,000—could resale fast, and asks the public to keep an eye on personal sale platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and Instagram.
The next steps in the police investigation are unclear. Baez is offering a reward for the return of his dogs, no questions asked, according to an informational poster he has been circulating. Anyone with information is asked to call 917-400-0744.
