Caught on cam: Red SUV steals Omaha man’s German Shepherd puppy

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Sunday, a desperate dog owner is looking for his new German Shepherd puppy.

Caught on camera at the corner of 65th Street and Lafayette Ave., you can see a red SUV, lying in wait. It pulls up and snatches a 9-week-old puppy and speeds away.

“I just can’t believe somebody would have that nerve to come take this little, innocent puppy,” said Russell Houlden, the owner of the dog.

He just got his German Shepherd, Storm, a week ago. A new companion for his 10-year-old Shepherd, Thor.

Then Saturday afternoon, he got that feeling no pet owner wants to feel: your dog not being where you left them last.

“I knew that you couldn’t really get out of the yard, but of course anything is possible. So we walked the neighborhood, didn’t find him. And then when I got back to the house, my neighbor across the street asked me what’s going on. I told him my dog was gone. And he said, ‘Let me go into the house and see if I have video.’ I said, ‘Please do,’ and it turns out he did have video and really good video of what exactly happened.”

Security footage caught a red SUV waiting across the street for 15 minutes, waiting for an opening, waiting for Houlden to step away.

And when he did for what he said was just a few minutes, that’s when in what the owner believes is a premeditated grab, the car pulls up to the gate.

The red SUV doesn’t have an identifiable license plate, although it’s believed to be a red GMC with temporary tags.

The driver is seen leaving the car. A passenger shuts the door and seemingly switches sides to the driver’s seat.

That black dot running around in the video is the puppy, Storm. The original driver in red struggles to grab the puppy over the fence but eventually does. They then run to the passenger side and the car takes off.

Even though Houlden’s puppy, Storm, is microchipped and registered to him, it’s not GPS-enabled. But if the puppy is taken to the vet, the vet will check the microchip and make sure it’s with the right owner.

But as of now, Houlden and the community are working together and going to great lengths to find this puppy. They’ve traveled within a five-mile radius, every block, searching for that red car.

He informed various community pages and local vets in the area. Sunday morning, he filed a police report.

“I can’t even tell you. I was up until 1:30, 2 o’clock in the morning. Just scrambling, every place I could think to post, I was posting.”

Houlden said he bought the puppy Nov. 11 from a reputable breeder in Milford, NE for $2,500. But’s not about the money. It’s about the dog.

“I don’t care how it happens, whoever has my dog. No questions asked. Bring the dog back to me, get on your way and then please stay away from my yard.”

The owner urges anyone with helpful information to let the police department know.

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