Friend in Need : Dying Boy’s Dog--His ‘Only Happiness’--Is Taken From Car at Hospital; Mother Pleads for Return

The mother of a dying 10-year-old boy Tuesday pleaded for the return of the boy’s best friend--a dog named Beethoven--who was stolen from the family car while it was parked outside a Harbor City hospital where the boy was receiving treatment.

“Please, please bring him back to us,” said Angela Ramos, 31, a San Pedro resident whose son, Martin, suffers from inoperable brain tumors. “Don’t take away the only happiness my son has. Beethoven was keeping him alive, he was giving Martin life. We really need him back.”

Ramos said Beethoven, a shaggy, black-and-white, 5-year-old Lhasa apso, was taken from her 1980 Chevette sometime between 2:45 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. Sunday while she and Martin were in Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.

Ramos said she had parked the car in a shaded handicapped parking space outside the hospital and left the car windows rolled down several inches so Beethoven would not get too warm. When she came out to give the dog some water, she said, he was gone. One of the car doors was unlocked, indicating that someone had reached through the open window and unlocked it, she said.

Ramos and a hospital security guard searched the area for hours but found no trace of Beethoven. Since then she has repeatedly checked local animal shelters, with no luck.

Although Martin has only the mental capacity of 9-month-old, and can move only slightly without assistance, Ramos said he knows Beethoven is missing.

“He was looking for his dog and reaching down the side of the bed and crying,” Ramos said, adding that Beethoven usually slept under Martin’s bed. “He knows Beethoven is gone, and he’s very depressed. He’s sleeping all the time now. When Beethoven was here he would respond to him, they would play together. Beethoven was his buddy. He keeps reaching for him, but he’s not there.”

Martin has been mentally and physically handicapped since birth, his mother said, with multiple tumors in his brain.

“The doctors say he can die at any moment,” said Angela Ramos, a single mother who cleans apartments for a living. “They’ve never been able to do anything for him. We just live with him day by day. It’s very hard.”

Beethoven has been a member of the Ramos family since January, when he jumped into their car one rainy day as they were leaving the Social Security office in San Pedro. He was wet and hungry, so they took him home and then tried to find his owners by putting up posters and notifying pet shops and animal shelters. No one claimed him. Meanwhile, the dog and Martin became fast friends. Ramos’ two other children, Ana, 7, and Jason, 6, named him Beethoven after the Saint Bernard in the movie of the same name.

Officers and detectives at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division, where Ramos filed a report about the missing dog, are making an extra effort in the case.

“We’re letting the patrol divisions know about it so they can keep an eye out,” said Detective Tom McAvay. “It’s sad that somebody would do this, but nothing surprises me anymore.”

McAvay said he doubts that Beethoven was simply let out of the car by an overzealous passerby who might have thought the dog was too hot in the parked car. But he added that there were no witnesses to the incident, so it is difficult to know what happened.

“You hate to see something like this happen to a little kid, especially a little kid like that,” said Officer Dave Winslow, who took the initial report on Beethoven’s disappearance. “All he wants is to have his dog back. We’re going to do what we can.”

Officers said anyone with information about Beethoven can contact the LAPD Harbor Division.

Ramos said she cannot afford to post a reward for the dog. But she said if anyone returns him there will be no questions asked.

“Whoever took him, if they would just bring him back, that’s all I want,” Ramos said. “Maybe they don’t know what he means to us.”