$1,000 pooch, Pete, disappears when teen takes it for walk

One night in late May, a 57-year-old man on Courtland Avenue in Macon was on his porch when a guy who hangs out nearby asked if he could take the man’s dog, Pete, for a walk. The man told the guy, a 19-year-old, that he could, “but only around the block,” a Bibb County sheriff’s report noted. The teen apparently took Pete, a Staffordshire bull terrier said to be worth $1,000, and never returned. The suspect’s grandmother lives across from the dog’s owner on Courtland, which runs between Hillcrest and Montpelier avenues, a block west of Pio Nono Avenue. The grandmother told a sheriff’s deputy that she hadn’t seen the young man with the dog. The young man’s father reportedly said he hadn’t either. Pete’s owner told the deputy that the dog is “more than just a pet to him.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "$1,000 pooch, Pete, disappears when teen takes it for walk."