Stacia Glenn

The News Tribune

Diamond Howard was playing in the front yard with her puppy and little sister Monday when a man walked up.

The 8-year-old Tacoma girl told King-5 what happened next.

“He said, ‘Cute dog. Can I pet it?’ And I said, ‘No,” and he just snatched the dog out of my hand and he ran.”

The girls screamed for their father, who came running from the house and tried to follow the man in his car.

When he couldn’t find the dog-napper, Don Howard called police and went door to door on Southwest 352nd Street, asking his neighbors if they had surveillance cameras that might have captured the puppy theft.

Roxy — a gray pit bull with a white patch on her stomach, white paws and a bald spot on her head — has not been found.

No one has been arrested.

The family said thief was a passenger in a newer white car with tinted windows. The car made a U-turn when it passed the girls playing with Roxy and a man got out to approach them.

“My family is devastated and my daughters are traumatized that two grown men did this to them,” Howard told Q-13. “My daughters are terrified to even be at our home.”

Anyone with information on Roxy’s whereabouts or who took her is asked to call Tacoma police or Tacoma-Pierce County Crimestoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).