Lilo, a Chihuahua

At first I wasn't sure this dog was stolen, that maybe the people that found her just really didn't know how to get her back. But I guess there's enough to point to theft. If you saw a dog in a Wendy's parking lot, and you just wanted it to be safe, wouldn't you go into the Wendy's to see if the dog belonged to someone inside?

Tina Maltais of Middleboro is relieved to finally get her dog Lilo, a five-year-old female Chihuahua home after the dog went missing for a week from a Wendy's on Rte. 44 in Raynham last Tuesday. Stitch, (left) Maltais' other family pet was also happy to have her playmate back.

Reunited and it feels so good
By Susan Parkou Weinstein
Wed Mar 12, 2008

MIDDLEBOROUGH - Lilo was safe in the arms of her owners today, a week after two strangers scooped her up outside a Wendy’s Restaurant in Raynham and absconded with her.


“We got her back last night. She looks wonderful,” a jubilant Tina Maltais said Wednesday, cradling her five-year old Chihuahua. “I went to the butcher and got her the biggest bone.”


The return of a healthy Lilo is something of a miracle. The tiny black-and-tan pooch suffers from seizures and needs daily medication to survive. Tina and Richard Maltais had spent an agonizing week wondering if Lilo was dead or alive.


She had been missing since March 4 when she apparently slipped out of the vehicle in the Wendy’s parking lot. Her absence wasn’t noticed until Tina returned home because the dog typically sleeps under the seat.When she went back to the restaurant a few hours later, Wendy’s employees said they had seen a couple luring a small dog into their black Oldsmobile. Inside surveillance video showed a young man and woman, possibly in their late teens, leaving Wendy’s with the food they had used as bait. A frantic Maltais spent the past week posting fliers, contacting animal control officers and veterinarians throughout the area and hoping for the best.


On Tuesday, at 4:40 p.m., their prayers were answered. A Fall River veterinarian contacted Tina to tell her that a Raynham couple had called seeking treatment for a Chihuahua that matched Lilo’s description. He told them the animal could be identified by her implanted chip and suggested they “do the right thing,” Tina said. Ten minutes later, the contrite abductors made the call. Lilo was reunited with her owners less than an hour later at a Mobil gas station on Route 44. She jumped right up when she saw them, Maltais said.


“The girl said to me, ‘Lilo is so wonderful. We want her.’ I told her, ‘get one of your own,’” she said.


The Maltaises are not interested in punishing the offenders who live right around the corner from the Wendy’s.


Dognapping is not a felony crime although the larceny of an animal is a misdemeanor, Raynham Police Chief Lou Pacheco said.But the couple wonders what kind of people would do such a thing.


“You can’t tell me they didn’t see all the fliers,” Tina Maltais said. Fortunately she is none the worse for wear from her ordeal. Her veterinarian couldn’t say whether she would last a day, a week, or a month without her medicine.


Now that Lilo is home, her constant companion, seven-month old Stitch, has stopped whimpering.And Tina Maltais learned a little something about the kindness of most strangers. After word of Lilo’s disappearance got out, many people called with tips about her possible whereabouts.One woman even offered Maltais her own Chihuahua puppy.


“People were so sweet to me. But I just wanted my baby back,” Maltais said.

Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/raynham/archive/x2015302083