English Bulldog Santino home at last

Three months after thieves swiped Santino, an English bulldog, from his owner’s backyard, a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy returned the wrinkly-nosed pooch home.

The happy ending was the result of a $2,000 reward for the missing dog’s safe return, an anonymous caller who reported the dog’s whereabouts in exchange for the money, and fast work by Deputy Dave Wright, according to Amber Sosa, Santino’s owner.

“I’m ecstatic. My nightmare is finally over. I feel like I can get on with my life,” she said at her Indian Hills home. “There’s no longer a piece of me missing.”

Sosa was one of a dozen victims of English bulldog thefts, half in Riverside County, that the Southern California Bulldog Rescue group has tracked in recent months.

Tammy Hernandez, a Riverside bulldog breeder who has tried to help retrieve six local bulldogs who disappeared recently, said Sosa is the only owner she has heard of recovering a stolen dog.

Hernandez chalked up the joyful outcome to Sosa offering a reward and a recent newspaper story about stolen bulldogs that featured Santino’s picture.

At 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sosa received a tip from an anonymous caller who claimed to know her dog’s whereabouts and would reveal the address in exchange for the $2,000 reward. Upon hanging up, Sosa called the Jurupa Valley sheriff’s station to speak with Wright, who had previously obtained a search warrant to try and recover Santino.

“I felt ‘Oh my God, this is the call I’ve been waiting for.’ It was excitement, terror, anxiety, all wrapped into one,” she said.

The next day Wright visited the suspect’s address where the homeowner agreed to show him the bulldog in the backyard. The dog’s markings resembled those of the photographed Santino, said Sgt. Gilbert Gonzalez.

“The homeowner told Deputy Wright he had bought the dog on the street recently,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said the homeowner willingly handed the dog over to Wright. The deputy then took Santino to a veterinarian who scanned the dog’s microchip, a computer chip surgically inserted under a pet’s shoulder, to verify that Sosa was indeed the rightful owner.