When The Internet Kidnaps Your Dog

This week on Reply All: Trying to get a kidnapped pug back.​

Jade Davis is an academic who studies the Internet. Usually, she tweets about topics like the ethics of self-driving cars, or the dangers of terms of service agreements. But in September, she started tweeting about something stranger, and much closer to home: how the Internet had kidnapped her dog.

Jade had had her pug, Schneider, for over a decade. Schneider was there before she had kids, back when her husband was still just her boyfriend. Her two sons bonded with Schneider when they were just babies. Jade thought she'd have Schneider until he died.

The events that led to Jade losing her dog started this past summer. It had been a tough couple of months: Jade's father died, her grandparents were in poor health. Jade, her husband, and their kids had just moved from North Carolina to New Jersey for a new job. However, the job didn't cover relocation expenses, so in this summer where everything was going wrong, the family was also broke. And then, to top it all off, there was this problem with Schneider. 

The folds in Schneider's face often got itchy, and he scratched his face by rubbing it against things. But then one day, something caught on Schneider's eye and cut into it. The cut turned into an ulcer. The ulcer burst. Jade called a vet, the vet said to take Schneider to an animal hospital right away. The animal hospital said that Schneider's eye needed to be removed, which would cost $5000. Every hour Jade waited, they said, the danger grew: Schneider's ulcer could get infected, and he could die.

Jade and her husband Justin scrambled to get Schneider to another vet for a second opinion, but no one could see him for a few days. And so, panicked, Jade came up with a backup plan: if Schneider absolutely needed this surgery, and there was no way they could pay for it, maybe they could find an animal rescue with the resources to save Schneider's life. Jade didn't want to give up Schneider, but she didn't want Schneider to die even more.

Jade and Justin found a rescue that looked good, and Justin filled out the form online. They hadn't decided to surrender their dog. It was more like they were applying to college, figuring out what their options were.

But everything started happening really fast, and within a few hours, Justin had agreed to meet a shelter volunteer the next day at a New Jersey Cracker Barrel. Somehow, very suddenly, Jade and Justin's backup plan had become their actual plan. Before they knew it, Justin and Jade were at the Cracker Barrel, giving Schneider away.

Two days later, Justin sent an email asking how Schneider was doing. And he got back really great news: Schneider didn't need the surgery. He just needed eye drops. This was amazing, because Jade and Justin could definitely afford eye drops. And it had only been a couple days. Schneider could come home.

But the shelter said… no. Justin had already agreed to give the dog away, and there was nothing he could do about that now. Jade and Justin begged for Schneider to come home. Pretty soon the shelter wrote to tell Justin and Jade to stop contacting them. Justin wrote back and asked for the shelter to at least hold off giving away Schneider until they could explore legal options. In response, they got a confusing email from a lawyer. The email was angry and condescending. The lawyer said to think of Schneider like a valuable coin that Jade carelessly gave away.

Jade was getting desperate. She couldn't really afford a lawyer, and there was nothing left to say to people at the shelter. Her whole family was devastated that Schneider was gone. Her son made this rap song about how much he missed him.

And so, this week on Reply All: we see what we can do about getting that pug back.

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