Family pleads for answers over who stole dog

ATLANTA — A local woman worries her dog is in the wrong hands after someone stole it from the front yard.

Sweet Pea is a young pit bull. Her rescue family told Channel 2’s Matt Johnson they fear she was taken to be used for dog fighting.

The now empty bed where Sweet Pea used to sleep is a heartbreaking sight for Shannon Gray and her family.

“We need her, we need her back home, safe,” Gray told Johnson.

Gray told Johnson she rescued the 15-month-old pit bull last month just days before she was going to be put down at the DeKalb County Animal Shelter.

“She was docile, she was loving from the get go,” Gray said.

Last Monday, Gray said she left her in the fenced backyard at their southwest Atlanta home on Lawton Street while she ran an errand.

Somehow she said Sweet Pea dug under the fence and wandered out front at around eleven thirty.

Surveillance video shows a gold sedan that gray had never seen before pull into the neighbor's driveway two doors down where the dog was.

That's when a man appears to hunch over carrying sweet pea and put her in the car and she's never seen again.

Her family fears her breed will put her in danger.

“Our worst fears are that she could be used for fighting or for bait,” Gray told Johnson.

Flyers are up in the neighborhood because her family is hopeful she will try and head home.

“If she's smart of enough to get out of the fence maybe she's smart enough to get out from where she's out now,” Gray said.

The family is trying to put together reward money for information that leads to her return.

Because she was taken in the morning they feel like someone saw something that can help.

Cox Media Group