PET thieves are cashing in on the soaring value of stolen dogs – but canine crime-buster Wayne May is hot on their trail.
With thefts now reaching five a day across Britain, the former Army bomb disposal expert is on a mission to reunite distraught owners with their pets — even though it can mean risking his life.
Wayne, 55, has been run over, stabbed and shot in the leg during his daring rescue missions. He has even dressed up as a postman.
He said: “I have used drones, military-grade thermal imaging cameras and advanced surveillance techniques to recover the animals.
“It’s always fulfilling to get them back. It’s worth the risks — I hate dog thieves.”
In the past 16 years Wayne has recovered more than 3,000 stolen dogs and secured hundreds of convictions against the thieves.
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Among his past clients are ten “very famous” people, including actors and newsreaders, and Wayne said: “Celebrities panic slightly more than everyday members of the public, as they quickly think the worst because of their status.
“They are willing to pay thousands to get their pets back.
“We had one celebrity that was deliberately burgled because of who they are and their chihuahua was taken. We trawled websites and saw when the dog came up for sale.
“We went along to a big block of flats in Islington in North London, and scanned lots of puppies with a microchip reader as we were pretending to stroke them.
“Then we knew we had the right dog and bought it back for the owner.”
In the ten years to 2024 more than 23,000 dogs were stolen in Britain.
The most targeted breeds are French bulldogs, which have had a resale value over £3,000, followed by Staffordshire bull terriers, chihuahuas and Jack Russells.
DogLost, the UK’s largest free lost-and-found dog database, recorded a 170 per cent rise in thefts from 2019 to 2020. In 2024, 1,808 dogs were reported stolen, roughly five a day.
This month seven dogs were stolen from dog walker Abigail Booth’s van in Failsworth, Greater Manchester.
She said she went into an “instant panic” when she heard her van “wheel-spinning” away from a client’s house with the dogs inside.
Earlier this year a drone search found stolen bulldog Tilly in Ayrshire, hundreds of miles from her Manchester home, five months after vanishing.
And a Cavalier King Charles spaniel and her four five-week-old puppies were snatched from their home in Coney Weston, Suffolk.
Most thefts are orchestrated by highly organised gangs who quickly sell the dogs on to new owners.
It was after Wayne’s spaniel and terrier show dogs were stolen in 2018 that he turned detective. The dogs were in their kennels on his farm in Dartford, Kent, when he heard them barking from inside his house.
He said: “It was unusual, they never barked. I looked outside to see someone nicking my dogs.
“I rushed out, tried to chase them, but they jumped into a black Range Rover, ran me over, then sped off.
“I was so devastated — and angry.”
With help from the police, DogLost and local wardens, Wayne eventually recovered two of them.
And after photos were circulated, a third, a terrier called Beau, was spotted being taken on to a ferry to the Isle of Wight from Southampton — 100 miles from where they were stolen.
Wayne added: “The police obviously can’t spend hours on helping because they don’t have the resources — it doesn’t compare to murder, rape or drug-dealing.
“But DogLost, who I now work with, bent over backwards to help.”
After hours of painstaking research Wayne eventually identified the thieves and mounted round-the-clock surveillance of their property.
He was never able to secure a conviction for the theft of his dogs but he did manage to gather enough evidence to see all of those involved jailed for other crimes.
He said: “We discovered two were people-smugglers, others were drug- dealers and we watched and recorded as some stole cars.
“Arrests were made and they went to prison. I didn’t get my dogs back but I did get some justice.”
In 2023 Wayne helped to trace a cocker spaniel called Honey, who was stolen from her owners’ home in Meopham, Kent.
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LIZZIE CUNDY offered a £5,000 reward for the return of her dog Alfie after he was snatched while being walked by a friend in London in 2023.
The six-month-old Maltipoo was stolen in Belgravia by a couple in a silver car.
Just days later, Alfie was reunited with the TV host after being handed in to a vets.
Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot and wounded as heartless thieves took two of her French bulldogs Koji and Gustav in Hollywood.
A third bulldog, named Miss Asia, ran away and was later picked up by police.
The stolen dogs were returned unharmed two days later after Gaga offered a $500,000 reward.
Walker Ryan Fischer had part of his lung removed after the 2021 attack. The shooter, James Howard Jackson, got 21 years’ jail.
Sheridan Smith was overjoyed to be reunited with Enid after the pooch was stolen from the actress’s London home in 2010. She asked Twitter followers for help and her pet was found – in Barking, East London.
Strictly contestant Gemma Atkinson was distraught when a dog was stolen from her local animal sanctuary in Bury, and asked her army of Instagram followers to help find missing Buddy in 2017.
Panicked by the social media buzz, the thieves left the dog at a vets.
Actor Martin Clunes offered a £2,000 reward to help find his pal’s beloved dog Pippin in 2016. The partially deaf Yorkshire terrier/poodle cross was snatched in a raid on owner Jane Wilson’s Leicestershire home.
BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones’ pet collie Cabbage vanished when a dog walker’s van was stolen in London in 2021. All six dogs were later found wandering together.
He discovered she may have been taken to a puppy farm for breeding, and said: “It was a rural property.
“I and a team set up surveillance to watch around the clock, with night vision and tents.
“We gathered amazing evidence and got the puppy farm shut down and the people involved banned from keeping dogs, but Honey wasn’t there.”
After leafletting and stories in the local media the family heard that Honey might be in the Ashford area.
Wayne said: “We tracked her down via seven different properties throughout Kent.
“The thieves were moving her on constantly while waiting for her to come into heat so they could breed from her.
“We used different cars to watch, we even dressed up as postmen to walk down the street and we had a couple of real postmen who wore hidden cameras for us when they delivered, so if a dog came to the door we would see it.
“When we found the property we watched around the clock again for seven days and eventually saw Honey in the garden at about 5am.
“We approached and stroked her and managed to scan her to get the microchip number.
“On this occasion it would have taken five days to get a warrant, so we returned the next night and lifted her over the fence and got her back.
“I will never forget placing her back in the owner’s garden and texting them to say she was home.
“I could hear joyful screams from outside. A little while after that they moved with her to Spain, as they were so affected by what happened.
“When a dog is stolen, owners understandably get very stressed, and emotion can get in the way of dealing with the police.
“The information we give the police is 99.9 per cent correct, whereas an owner may be more confused.
“We handle things calmly, we know what people are going through, as most of us are victims ourselves.”
Every owner is grateful — and Wayne stays in touch with some of them.
He said: “In 2020 in North London three pugs were stolen from a nurse. She came home in the middle of the night and found her house had been ransacked and the dogs were gone.
“Two of them were found nearby but little Snuggles had gone. We managed to track him down via his microchip.
“We knew where it was last scanned and we emailed vets in the area.
“Eventually we found it had been bought by an innocent new owner. We called the police and got Snuggles back after six weeks.
“She rings me on the anniversary of when the dogs were stolen every single year to say thank you.”