A local pet owner said he was so happy to have his 10-year-old dog, Pixel, back after a frightening incident in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood.
“When I watched that car pull away, I just thought of her sitting in the backseat all by herself, just completely helpless,” said Garrett Cumber. “My heart just sank, you know?”
Cumber had just picked up his second dog Roxanne from a doggy daycare and was walking back to his car when he noticed two guys approaching his vehicle near Washtenaw and North avenues.
“One of the guys ran away and the other one just kinda jumped in the driver seat, hit the locks, and tore out. It just happened so fast,” he said.
Surveillance video from Canine Crews captured the theft at around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday evening.
“I ran up to the car grabbed the handle, it was locked. I banged on the window, used some choice words,” Cumber recounted. “I said, 'hey, get the expletive out of my car.' I just was like banging on the windows. That’s pretty much all I remember.”
Video shows Cumber running back inside the doggy daycare where he called for help and notified his wife, Amy. The couple had an Apple AirTag in their vehicle and saw that the car stopped in Humboldt Park.
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“I was like, aimlessly walking around Humboldt Park, sobbing, asking people if they had seen our dog and I was like, this is fruitless, what am I doing,” Amy said.
Amy wrote in two neighborhood Facebook groups, asking if anyone had seen Pixel, and within minutes, she received a response on Pixel’s whereabouts.
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“I was connected to the Humboldt Park community page and a post that somebody had made about Pixel and their found dog, and they were looking for the owner, and so I was put in contact with the person who found our dog,” she explained.
Amy couldn’t believe the outpouring of support.
“Hundreds of people were commenting and connecting and liking, bumping the post, and then, just to have our friends and neighbors support us—we just feel so grateful for all,” she said.
Garrett admitted he made the mistake of his leaving his car unlocked and running.
While Chicago police couldn’t go into details of the case, the couple told NBC Chicago they got their car back and that police ended up making an arrest.
“They followed them to a point, the guys stopped, got out of the car, and the cops chased them on foot,” he said. “They ended up getting three people.”
Garrett and his wife said they can’t thank police and their community enough for their help in the end.
“Despite everything we feel very lucky,” said Amy. “We came out very unscathed in all of this, we’re safe, Pixel’s home our car is back, everything is going to be okay.”
