Meet the True Crime ‘Pet Detectives’ Chasing Down Animal Thieves

Lisa Loops’ mind is whirring as she places her mobile phone on her bedside table before going to sleep. She’s always on call – the sound stays on, just in case. Someone might need her.

Lisa is a modern-day ‘pet detective’. She runs Muddy Paws, a pet crime-solving group with five other volunteers. For her, “giving stolen pet owners a voice for their animals” isn’t just an all-consuming commitment; it’s her life. 

Lisa’s journey into pet crime started a few years ago. After leaving behind a career in the travel trade to explore acting, screenwriting and directing, she noticed a flood of Facebook posts about missing and stolen dogs. Initially, she saw a potential story – a TV production, perhaps. She put out a call for people searching for their stolen pets. The response? Overwhelming. The scale of the problem was staggering. She felt compelled to act.

Now, Lisa is at the heart of a real-life crime-fighting group – the kind of main character she’d envisioned for the screen. “How could I say no?” she says over Zoom, speaking from her home, which doubles as Muddy Paws HQ. “There were all these people that needed help, and I got stuck. It’s become a full-time job,” she says – although, Lisa doesn’t get paid. 

Inside the Muddy Paws pet crime group

A brief scroll through the Muddy Paws Facebook Group reveals the scope of the crisis. Posts pour in on a daily basis: dogs stolen from walks, gardens and homes; animal welfare violations; disputes with dog wardens; backstreet breeders and animal hoarders.

“We've got so many cases,” says Lisa, exasperated. Right now, the group is juggling over 120 ongoing investigations, or ‘cases’. “I couldn't really grasp why, when a dog is stolen or abused, the police didn’t take it seriously,” she sighs. 

When a case comes in, Lisa opens a large file and starts gathering evidence. Every stolen pet – dog or cat – gets their own Facebook page, where updates and photos are constantly shared. 

Social media is vital in tracking stolen pets and pressuring criminals. Lisa and her team are also a lifeline for pet parents, offering on-call emotional support around the clock – “we’re here for them 24/7,” says Lisa.

Despite the extensive list of current investigations, some cases stick in Lisa’s mind. She tells me the story of a woman whose sister gave her dog to a rescue centre while she was away. Lisa and her team managed to track down the new owner. 

“There was also an alleged ‘finder’ who called me to say he’d ‘found’ the spaniel from a case we were working on,” Lisa tells me. But thanks to her network, Lisa uncovered that he was the thief – social media pressure forced him to surrender the dog. “Too many people had recognised the dog,” she explains, “he realised he couldn’t keep it or do anything with it.” 

A pet crime epidemic 

Heartbreakingly, the stats show the reality Lisa confronts daily: pet crime is on the rise across the UK and the US. In the first half of 2024, the RSPCA received 44,800 reports of animal cruelty in England and Wales – nearly 1,000 more than the same period in 2023. In the UK alone, 2,290 dogs were stolen in 2023 – the equivalent to six dogs per day according to Direct Line. English Bulldogs, often fetching up to £3,000 online, are prime targets. 

Pet Log, one of the UK’s largest lost-and-found pet databases, reported almost 5,000 dogs and over 20,000 cats missing between January 2023 and June 2024. In the US, the American Kennel Club estimates that two million dogs are stolen in the United States every single year – almost 200,000 a month.

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Until last year, UK law classified pets as ‘property’, treated in the same way as if you’d had, say, a mobile phone stolen. This ignored the fact that having a pet abducted was a “stressful and heartbreaking” experience, according to Paula Boyden, veterinary director at Dogs Trust. 

This changed in August 2024, when the Pet Abduction Act was introduced to create specific offences of dog and cat theft in England and Northern Ireland, and to introduce compulsory microchipping. Under the new law, anyone found guilty of stealing a cat or dog in England or Northern Ireland will face up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.

Lisa, however, remains unconvinced. “When dogs get stolen, their microchips are removed. So that means there’s just no way of tracing them,” she explains. There’s a real sense – especially in Lisa’s online network of pet-crime-fighting Facebook groups – that the law still just doesn’t take pet crime seriously enough. Lisa shares a recent example: a woman avoided prison after abandoning a dog and 35 puppies in a state of neglect.

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The tricky business of evidence gathering

Over her years as a pet detective, Lisa has built up a strong network. While she works hard from her computer, she has connections with ‘ground’ and ‘capture’ teams all over the UK and Ireland who are out searching on foot and with drones. 

Lisa spends most of her days ‘evidence gathering’ – “I’m digging out evidence that the police should really have found,” she explains. For one of the Muddy Paws cruelty cases, Lisa secured audio proof of a man beating his dog on a balcony. The case stayed with her for days – the dog was seized. “It’s a horror,” Lisa says. “It’s just horrendous, it really affects me.”

Lisa’s work has even led to prosecutions. In one animal cruelty and illegal breeding case, police were able to obtain a warrant to search a property based on Lisa’s evidence. “The police sergeant thanked me for my work,” Lisa says, though she’s quick to note the irony. “The police are paid to do this. I’m not. It shows how weak the laws are – the public is doing the work.”

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Looking ahead

Lisa’s efforts now focus on pushing for systemic change. She’s organising meetings with MPs and campaigning for stricter laws against illegal breeders and animal neglect, including several pets living in squalor. She’s currently running a petition calling to “strengthen suitable environment criteria for dogs under animal welfare act” –  Lisa says this will help people report animal crimes. “I call it a broken jigsaw puzzle,” she says. “You’ve got dog fighting, illegal trafficking – there’s so much that needs doing.”

Back in 2022, Lisa created a video trailer highlighting stolen dog cases, all of which still remain unsolved. All the videos Lisa has made for Muddy Paws are in a tab on the Facebook page – including the Facebook live sessions she hosts, where she interviews pet parents on the toll of having their beloved pets stolen. 

She’s even got a ‘pet theft single’, called ‘Please Let Today Be The Day’, coming out in the UK, USA and Canada in May. “The two dogs on the cover are stolen terriers Margie and Ruby whose parents we’re assisting,” says Lisa, who’s hoping the charity single raises them some much-needed funds to assist their plight. “We've even got a few stolen dog owners singing in the chorus.”

What keeps her motivated? “I just look at my own dogs, I wouldn’t cope if something happened to them,” she says. “The owners need me.”  And her ultimate dream for the cause? Hosting a TV show. Dog Watch, if you will – a canine-focused version of Crimewatch. 

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Other pet detectives

Lisa isn’t alone in this fight. Across the UK and US, other pet-crime-fighting heroes – both voluntary and professional – are making a difference.

The UKPD Pet Detective

The agency is run by former police detective Colin Butcher and his working cocker spaniel (and the UK’s only cat detection dog) Molly. “I could work every single day of the week and every weekend there’s so much demand right across the board,” he recently told the Guardian. Colin’s “knowledge and experience in the investigation of serious and major crimes is vital when dealing with the more complex investigations such as ransom demands, pet charity fraud and pet killings”, reads his website. The Pet Detective team also includes animal behavioural specialists and surveillance experts.

Kim the Cat Finder

Based in Georgia in the US, Kim has been a full-time cat detective for 11 years – according to her website, she’s got it down to science, she knows what will get your cat home safely. She works with her sidekick, Henry – the first ever cat to be trained in scentwork to find other cats. Kim rescued Henry from an outdoor adoption event in Texas. “I adopted him in December 2013 and started training him to follow a trail on New Year's Day, 2014,” says Kim, “he took to it so fast, it seemed as if he’d been waiting for this job.”

Tuk’s Law

Sue Williams and Dawn Ashley named their campaign after Tuk – a five-week-old, Mioritic Shepherd puppy that was living on the streets of Romania before being rehomed in the UK. Tragically, Tuk’s adoption process went wrong and – despite Tuk being a healthy 18-month-old – he was euthanised by a vet who failed to scan his microchip. 

Had they checked, it would have revealed he had what’s called “rescue back-up”, meaning the rescue charity would have taken him back and guaranteed him a home for life. Sue and Dawn even won an award for their campaigning at the People’s Pet Awards back in 2021. But the pair’s petition is still live, because at the moment it is still legal for vets to euthanise dogs without scanning their microchips first – Dawn and Sue are determined to change that.