Dognapers Get Away With Family’s 4 English Bulldogs

The pall in the Heredia household was heavy enough these past two weeks, after thieves apparently climbed a block wall and made away with Zach, an 8-month-old English bulldog.

To console her 4-year-old son, Amanda Heredia had promised to get Zach back.

Instead, bad luck turned to worse when dognapers, perhaps the same ones, pried through the back door of the home in the 5800 block of Noble Avenue to get Bugsy, Huera and Piglet, the Heredias’ other three pups.

“I can’t say it was the same person, but I’m pretty sure it was,” Amanda Heredia said Wednesday.

When she reported Zach missing Dec. 3, Heredia said, she couldn’t get police to take her case seriously.

But when the paralegal came home from work for lunch Tuesday afternoon, several officers were already on the case, having been summoned by a silent alarm, she said. They were too late to save the three dogs, who were apparently tossed over the backyard wall by one thief to another.

The pedigreed bulldogs, worth up to $2,500 with their papers, may fetch $500 on the black market, Heredia believes.

Zach and 4 1/2-month-old Huera are white with spots. Bugsy, 8 months, and Piglet, 5 1/2 months, are red brindles, brown and red with black streaks. The case is being investigated by the Van Nuys Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.