INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis teenager is still looking for her dog, which was stolen during a walk last year.
“I just want my dog back,” said 16-year-old Jennifer Torres.
That’s how she’s felt every day for the past six months, after someone took her 2-year-old maltipoo, Leah.
“We miss her so much. We’ve had all these memories with her and everything,” Torres said.
Now, the last memory she has of Leah is from surveillance video from Torres' church on East Pleasant Run Parkway.
In that video, you can see Leah running down the church driveway toward the road. Then, a gray four-door car pulls into frame and then out of it, as it stops on the road.
“They just opened the door and like slammed it shut, and they zoomed off,” said Torres, who watched it happen in real time.
“They took her and, like, shut the door and, like, sped off,” she added.
Torres had hoped whoever took Leah might return her when they saw Torres' name and number on the dog’s collar.
“They never called me,” said Torres, who got no response to early social media posts about what happened.
That is until recently, when Torres posted about Leah on the Nextdoor app. That post has been widely shared, giving Torres some hope.
“We’re still trying to look for her. My mom was even thinking maybe they want money for her,” Torres said, adding she’s not sure if the people who took Leah live near the Christian Park area, but she’s hoping Leah can get away again and someone else can find her and bring her home.
“Like a dog lover finds her and says, ‘Oh, let’s find your home,’” she said.
That could be a longshot, though, because Leah wasn’t microchipped. That’s why Torres has frequently checked with area shelters, but even that’s been difficult because of the pandemic.
At this point, Torres feels like she needs a miracle or someone to do the right thing.
“I feel like a dog is your family,” she said. "Just getting them taken away, it hurts a lot.”