Days after her puppy was stolen, DC woman reunited with French bulldog

A D.C. woman’s puppy that was stolen last weekend has been found, police said Tuesday.

D.C. police posted a photo of the reunion on Tuesday on the social platform X.

An armed robber took Teffiney Worthy’s puppy, Hendrix, on Saturday afternoon in Northeast, police said.

Worthy, who lost a dog earlier this year in a flooding incident at District Dogs in Northeast D.C., said the 6-month-old French bulldog was forcibly stolen on Saturday around 4 p.m. in the Brookland neighborhood.

After her dog was taken, Worthy launched a GoFundMe campaign and pleaded for the public’s help on social media.

D.C. police Commander Jeffrey Kopp, with the Violent Crime Suppression Division, said Worthy contacted detectives and let them know that she was in communication with somebody who claimed to have her dog.

“We then started working with her to recover that dog at the time of the recovery,” Kopp said, adding that Worthy was not on the scene when the dog was recovered and she was never involved in the operation itself.  “She was not in danger.”

The person who had the dog is not under arrest, but Kopp said the person is “not fully cleared either.”

Kopp said the police intend to find every person involved in the dog’s theft and bring them to justice.

The dog was taken as Worthy approached the entrance to her home. A suspect, who she said she thought she saw at a gas station nearby, walked toward her and threatened “to end my life with a weapon in hand,” she told WTOP.

The suspect had a stun gun at the time of the incident, D.C. police said.

“I think the complainant did a great job contacting the detectives,” Kopp said. “She contacted the detectives and got the ball rolling and made sure that law enforcement was involved.

WTOP’s Abigail Constantino and Ivy Lyons contributed to this report.

Scott Gelman

Scott Gelman is a digital editor and writer for WTOP. A South Florida native, Scott graduated from the University of Maryland in 2019. During his time in College Park, he worked for The Diamondback, the school’s student newspaper.

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