By Taylah Eastwell
A blind Upper Ferntree Gully man has had his beloved dog stolen from him as part of a rouge trade while he rest in hospital.
The 41-year-old legally blind man, Matt, found himself in hospital after having a fall and breaking his ankle in November last year. Now on the mend, Matt finds himself isolated and lonely without his four-legged companion, Sam the poodle, who now resides with an unknown couple following a shonky deal by a pet-sitter.
The Star Mail caught up with Anne-Marie of Arthur & Co Pet Detectives, who have been enlisted to help track down Matt’s much-loved poodle Sam.
Arthur & Co Pet Detectives are a group of specialist agents that assist in cases of lost and stolen pets.
“Sam, the poodle, is 10-years-old and is a bit like a stubborn old man. He quite likes his own home. He spent some time with Matt’s parents but was more comfortable in his own home, so Matt’s parents would go around to attend to him multiple times each day, they were walking him twice a day, playing fetch with him, cuddling him, because they live just around the corner,” Anne-Marie said.
In early January, an acquaintance of the parents offered to take the dog to a friend of hers to care for Sam on a “temporary pet-sit arrangement” while Matt recovered.
“Matt’s parents went and visited Sam, they even took some gifts to the woman for her kind offer and offered to pay her but the woman declined. When Matt got out of hospital at the end of February they went to get Sam back and were told that Sam had been rehomed,” Anne-Marie explained.
After the initial shock, attempts to confront the woman who on-sold Sam were met with hostility, with the couple screaming “a bl**dy blind man shouldn’t have a dog anyway”.
“Arthur & Co Pet Detectives got involved in around April and contacted the woman only to have her partner ring us back and say aggressively ‘the dogs gone’, ‘you won’t be getting it back, drop this, don’t bother taking this on, the people who have got it like it’,” Anne-Marie said.
Anne-Marie said the couple spoke about Sam as if he were an object, constantly referring to him as ‘it’.
“They said ‘call the f****ing police, call A Current Affair, do your best basically’,” Anne-Marie said.
“We then re-grouped and sent an agent around to appeal to them, and contacted the Ferntree Gully pub where this deal was made about the dog,” she said.
After tracking down the couple who have Sam, Arthur & Co Pet Detectives attended an address on Rollings Road, Upper Ferntree Gully on Thursday 27 May in an attempt to plead with the residents to return him to his distraught and lonely owner, Matt.
“We were told no, they said they will drag it through the courts and abuse the court system to make it drag out until Matt can’t afford it,” Anne-Marie said.
According to Knox Police, the matter is a civil matter, meaning any criminal arrests or interventions are not plausible.
“If this was someone’s stolen car, the police would go around there, question the people and retrieve the car, make some arrests. You can’t just give away someone else’s property like this, it is theft, particularly when that intention was there to deprive Matt of his property, as sad as it is to refer to a dog as property that is how they are seen under Australian law,” Anne-Marie said.
“Because it’s a dog and not a phone or a diamond ring, it’s considered civil,” Anne-Marie said.
“He is microchipped, registered, the chip is registered as stolen, and Matt did not provide any paperwork to relinquish his ownership, he didn’t really even allow for the dog to be pet-sat in the first place because he was in hospital,” she said.
“The most disappointing thing is we always approach with an open mind and heart and understand that people may have been told certain stories or misled, but we were met with angst and told horrible things.
Matt’s dog groomer contacted Arthur & Co Pet Detectives to express her concern, vouching for Matt’s care of Sam.
“Sam is always near Matt and to me seems very attached to him. He takes very good care of Sam – he is obviously well fed and sleeps inside and he books Sam in every three months for his groom,” the groomer said.
The heartbreaking story is weighing heavily on Matt, who has now gone months without his four-legged bestfriend.
“To say they will drag it out through the courts and make a blind man, who can’t work, struggle like that to the point he wont be able to afford to get his dog back is unnecessarily unkind,” Anne-Marie said.
“This is strange behaviour and really disappointing, especially when we are in the middle of a loneliness pandemic as well as a global pandemic, to knowingly deprive a disabled man of his dog and companion,” she said.
The owners are offering a $1,000 reward for the safe return of Sam. Anyone with any information is urged to contact Arthur & Co Pet Detectives on Facebook.
