Possible dognappers spotted on popular walking route
A Helston dog owner may have narrowly avoided a dog theft on the popular walking route, Penrose.
Water technician, Ashleigh Krügel, 27, said she walked her dog, Sammy, at around 3.30pm on Easter Sunday.
Sammy was paddling in a stream near the Coronation Lake car park, when Miss Krügel noticed a couple “hovering” around her in a way that “didn’t feel like normal human behaviour.”
She said they were not wearing typical walking clothes and, when she turned towards them, they suddenly looked at the floor.
Miss Krügel said: “That’s when they started pacing. They started off five metres to my right and then five metres to my left, and I just stayed in the same place, just to let Sammy swim.
“Then all of a sudden, the male came down. There’s probably no reason you would want to come down to the water. I looked at him and then he looked at the woman and said something to her in a different language, but it was almost kind of whispered.”
Miss Krügel and Sammy fled towards some walkers in a nearby field and exited with them.
She said: “I don’t know if they were after my dog, I don’t know if they were just strange people, I don’t even know if they wanted anything, but I just find that it was very shifty behaviour. It made me uncomfortable. It made me fear for my dog’s life, I wasn’t really worried about mine.”
She added: “What is it going to take to change laws? Must someone get hurt? Does someone need to be killed?”
Dog theft is not currently a specific crime in the UK, with dogs regarded as property.
Miss Krügel said she took the appropriate steps to report the incident to police, but never received a reply.
