Hell's Kitchen Couple Searching For Missing Dog, $5,000 Reward Offered
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A couple in Hell's Kitchen have been searching for their dog since Christmas, and they are now offering up a reward of $5,000.
CBS2's Cindy Hsu talked to her owners and the woman who flew more than a thousand miles to help find her.
Doris, a 10-year-old Shih Tzu on heart medication for seizures, belongs with owners William Bell and his wife Estella.
"She's sweet, she'll come to you and jump up on your lap and just want you to play with her," said Estella. "She's just a playful little dog."
"I think Doris as one of my kids, my best friend my companion," said William.
Doris went missing the day after Christmas after William says he tied her up outside a bodega as he quickly went in to check his lottery ticket. When he came out she was gone.
Sonja Horton used to work with Estella and when Sonja's two dogs had puppies. She named one Doris and gave her to Estella.
Sonja moved to Florida a few years ago, but she's been flying back to New York to help her friend find Doris.
"I think it's wonderful, I consider her like a daughter," said Estella. "If I had a daughter it would be her."
Sonja spread the word about Doris through social media and raised $5,000 for a reward for her return, no questions asked.
While she hasn't been able to find surveillance video of what happened, she believes someone grabbed the dog.
"Even if you unleashed her, she would just sit there, she sits that's how she is," she said.
She's recruited friends to help give out flyers and post them all over the place, but says they're consistently taken down along two blocks near 44th Street and 9th Avenue where Doris disappeared.
Talking to local business owners, she says she's getting some strange stories.
"There was a man who went into a local pet food store with another dog and he keeps telling them that the dog's been found, take them down," said Horton.
Doris has been gone for two months, but Estella still has hope.
"Never give up hope, but I just hope that whoever has her, they're taking care of her and feeding her," said Estella.
She says they'll keep on searching.
