MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A southwest Miami-Dade County family is appealing to the public for help after a woman stole their dog from their yard Monday morning.
Masiel Moreira's security cameras captured the theft around 8 a.m. in the 4200 block of Southwest 109th Court. In the video, the woman approaches the home and takes the dog, a 2-year-old Yorkshire terrier named Mathew, from behind a fence and then runs to a white car, possibly a 2004 Mitsubishi.
Moreira reviewed the footage taken before the theft and found that the car had passed the house several times.
Moreira had just adopted Matthew just over a month ago. He was a Christmas gift for her 8-year-old daughter, Natalie Gonzalez.
"We started looking for him. We started calling, 'Mathew, Mathew,' looking for our dog to see where he was, and there was no sign of him because he's a small dog," Frank Carrasco, a friend of Moreira, told Local 10 News. "We literally starting looking (at) surveillance cameras and that's when we find out, about 10 minutes prior, the dog was taken."
The family is offering a $1,000 reward for Matthew's return. Anyone with information about the dog's whereabouts is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.