Owners reunited with stolen dog and car share appreciation, tech warning
By Sean MacKinnon
Click here for updates on this story
CINCINNATI, Ohio (WLWT) — Multiple cars were reported stolen at the Rookwood parking lot Saturday, and inside one of them was a puppy named Dolly.
Dolly’s story went viral on Cincinnati social media.
Thieves dumped the pup in the freezing cold, but Sunday, she was reunited with her owners.
On Saturday night, around 8 p.m. at Rookwood, thieves went on a stealing spree.
“Three cars were stolen that day. One car was stolen two minutes before ours from the lot as well,” Jimmy Hermann said.
Inside one of those cars was Dolly the long-haired daschund. Right away, her owners posted online, and it went viral on Greater Cincinnati social media.
“Immediately I thought, well, ‘Oakley Hyde Park Moms’ [Facebook group] will be all over this,” Olivia Molina said. “I had strangers messaging me saying they were driving around the area looking for her, I had people asking me how they could help.”
People connected them with a thermal drone pilot to look for Dolly’s heat signature Sunday morning.
“Yeah, he was out there at 9 o’clock this morning, with his drone, running around. It was 25 degrees. Yeah, he was extremely helpful, yeah, people at 5 in the morning are posting pictures on Facebook thinking they saw her,” Hermann said.
Location lead took them to East Walnut Hills, where they found Dolly Sunday afternoon after surviving the night.
“Yeah, thanks to everybody. We can’t thank the community enough,” Hermann said.
Police found the stolen car in East Price Hill. The tracking software was ripped out and the license plates were taken off.
When it was stolen Saturday night, Hermann was picking up pizza from Donatos in Rookwood.
“What the police had kind of shared and what’s happened often, is when you’re in those 15-minute parking spots, they typically kind of camp those areas out,” Hermann said.
The key fob in his pocket, the car was still running, but the doors were locked. Police told him thieves have new tech that might make people think twice about remote starts.
“They’ll have a universal key, and so if the car is still running, they can use that to at least access the car — no matter if it’s locked or not,” Hermann said.
“Everything’s wireless, I can start my car from you know inside my house, but then you know, not even think about it because it’s locked, but if they can get through the locks now, and be able to drive away,” said Doug Barclay, who was picking up Donatos pizza Sunday night. “I didn’t know if there was some type of distance that your car can go without the fob or not, but it’s just crazy what they can do now.”
For Jimmy and Olivia, though, Dolly was all that mattered. She’s home thanks to people who cared.
“She won’t be running any errands anytime soon. We’ll probably let her just stay at home and bark at the delivery guys from now on,” Hermann said.
WLWT News 5’s Sean MacKinnon reached out to Aegis Security at Rookwood to see if the stolen cars were caught on security cameras.
Police did not say if there were any possible suspects, but took fingerprints from the recovered stolen car.
This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.