CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- A woman is sick to her stomach after someone allegedly took her little Pomeranian in a Cape Coral community.
She says the dog wondered off last weekend and was taken in a matter of minutes. And she claims to have a description of the person who did it.
Just thinking of the little long hair Pomeranian's face is enough to bring Marie Fortini to tears. "I can't eat...I can't sleep...Nothing's right."
And she's begging you - or anyone - to make the pain stop. "I need somebody to find my baby and bring her home...Please."
As every minute passes by without her baby girl. "I call her Shelby-Lou. She had a pink collar on and a green scarf."
Sweet Shelby, as Marie calls her, wandered off to Skyline Boulevard and Veterans Boulevard as Fortini was putting up Christmas decorations Sunday afternoon. "I put them in the house and closed the door, because I did not look for her. Because she never comes out in the front with me without a leash."
Fortini didn't notice for about an hour that Shelby was missing.
Meanwhile, her neighbor Edgar Pineda tried saving Shelby after watching her wandering in the street, not even knowing who she belonged to. He tells Fox 4 that Shelby ran off to a busy intersection off of Skyline and literally stopped traffic.
He says that's when a woman in her 50's with blonde hair and dark frames stopped, telling Pineda it was her dog -- even though clearly it isn't.
"Shelby jumped right to her. She saved my dogs life and for that, thank you very much," says Fortini. But she adds, "she stole my dog."
Fortini says she's called every shelter and vet offices hoping to find the dog. "I've reached out to Cape Coral Police Department because they do have cameras in the intersections that may have caught this."
So Fox 4 went to Cape Coral Police to see if there's any surveillance footage available to possibly check a license plate number to track the woman down.
"Those cameras in that intersection are Department of Transportation cameras. I don't even think they record. They're observed by somebody at an out of the way operation center, so to speak," says Cpl. Phil Mullen.
Police say if they had access to those cameras they would be able to look into it and see whoever it is took the dog. But they're hoping whoever took Shelby will just come forward and bring her home.
Since this story first aired, a Southwest Florida woman has contacted Fox 4 to offer a $500 reward to help get the dog back. We'll keep you updated if there are more developments in this story.
