Las Vegas woman’s dog missing with stolen car

A Las Vegas woman is asking for the public’s help to locate her dog, which was inside her car when it was stolen in front of her northwest valley home Thursday.

Gaby Topete was getting ready to leave for a road trip to California Thursday morning, she told the Review-Journal on Sunday night. She backed her car into her garage and loaded it up. The last thing she put in the car was Tonka, a female pug mix.

As Topete was pulling out of her driveway onto Trumbull Street, near West Tropical Parkway and North Jones Boulevard, she realized she had forgotten her phone. She ran inside to get it, but she left the car running to give Tonka some cool air.

When she came back both the car and the dog were gone. She called out for Tonka, hoping that the thieves released the dog at least.

“I think I’m holding up only because it doesn’t feel real,” she said.

She called Las Vegas police, who sat with her for about an hour while another officer drove up and down the street to look for Tonka or a sign of her vehicle.

Then, while cancelling the credit cards that were stolen with her purse, Topete got a lead on the dognappers, she said.

She rushed out front to catch the officers on their way out to tell them that one of her cards had just been used at a gas station in North Las Vegas.

The investigation stalled, and she spent the weekend collecting her own evidence.

She found the gas station they used her card at and inspected the surveillance footage. She canvassed the neighborhood and found a neighbor had surveillance cameras and captured the criminals. She said the footage shows a car pulling up, letting a man out of the back, and following her vehicle after the man walks toward her house.

She has provided stills of the surveillance images to the Review-Journal with the hopes that someone recognizes them, her dog or her car.

Topete drove a 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse with California license plate No. 6XEY623. Tonka is described as having a cute pug face with a Chihuahua-like underbite.

Animal rights activist Gina Greisen said a similar incident occurred in September. The car in that case was found eight days later, and the dog was decomposing in the backseat.

If you have information about the case, you can contact Greisen at 702-660-8970.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @WesJuhl