2 pugs missing after West Seattle home burglarized

Marsha Lubetkin knew something was wrong Monday evening when her pugs Bandit and Pippin didn't greet her at the door of her West Seattle home.

Then she saw that the screen on her open dining-room window had been bent and tossed on the deck. Her box of costume jewelry had been emptied on her bed, and the contents of her dresser drawers and old tax returns lay scattered on the floor.

But the only things that were missing were two men's gold rings, and the most important thing to Lubetkin: the dogs.

"I don't know if he was mad because he didn't find anything and decided, well, the dogs are something," she said.

A neighbor said she saw two men leave Lubetkin's house in a truck Monday afternoon but didn't see the dogs, Lubetkin said. Police told Lubetkin the dogs likely got out of the house during the burglary and would turn up when a neighbor found them.

"But my feeling is if they didn't take them, they'd be around here," Lubetkin said.

Bandit is blind and couldn't have gotten far, she said. She searched the area herself, and so far no neighbors have turned up with the pugs.

Seattle police Sgt. Jeff Durden said the department has assigned a detective to Lubetkin's case.

Reports of dogs being stolen during burglaries are rare, Durden said, but police are seeing a rise in break-ins in West Seattle. Most of the break-ins occur during the day or when people aren't home, he said.

"I don't understand why anybody would take them," Lubetkin said. "It would just be a hassle unless somebody thought they could get some money for them."

The dogs, "strictly pets" and not show dogs, aren't worth much except as beloved family members who even sleep in the bedroom with Lubetkin and her husband, Barney. The pugs aren't insured, and although they're purebred, they're spayed and neutered, she said.

Bandit is a 6-year-old male who is blind and "needs special care," she said. Pippin is a "petite" 4-year-old female who is slightly darker and redder than most pugs. They know their names, she said, but don't always come when called.

She is putting up fliers around the neighborhood and visiting animal shelters hoping to find the animals, which are microchipped but weren't wearing collars. Today is Lubetkin's wedding anniversary, and she hopes the pugs will be home to celebrate.

"It just seems like quite a crazy thing to do to take two dogs that won't really get you much," Lubetkin said. "They don't deserve this. They're sweet little doggies."

Noelene Clark: 206-464-2321 or nclark@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Jennifer Sullivan contributed to this report.