It's sad to hear about kidnapped pets. Pet people need to know that their pets are at risk. Unfortunatly it happens every day. Pets are just like people's children, and if a child gets kidnapped there is heartbreak.

The same reactions happen when a loved family pet is kidnapped. To many pet owners, their animal companions are priceless.

For criminals, stealing people's pets has serious earning potential. Pet thieves are reselling and ransoming pets they've nabbed – playing off the emotional and market value of animal companions.

It takes no great leap of imagination to see that unattended pets or pets in cars, sidewalks, and shopping areas are particularly vulnerable to getting kidnapped. Every year an estimated 2 million of our companion animals are stolen from cars and backyards.

We used to be skeptical about the extent of the kidnapping-for-laboratories business but it is a big underground business. For their own purposes, laboratories don't ask questions about where the animals that are supplied to them by middlemen come from.

Pet peddlers have a money interest in pets and prey on people who can no longer keep thier pets. Desparate owners listen to promises of good and loving homes. The promises are are not kept. Instead your pet's fate is a laboratory or medical facility where they die painful and lonely deaths.

Stolen pets are also used for animal sacrifice and the "dog meat eating" community is a real. Stolen pets are used in dog fighting.

Keep your pet in a safe enviroment, away from the thieves.