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Man holding board with picture of his dog
© Chantelle Stephan - GoFundMe « Bring Lemmy Home »

Dog sitter steals client's dog: Owner hasn’t seen his dog for almost 4 years

By Emilie Heyl Content Writer

Published on the

Greg lives in Windsor, Canada. It's been over three years since he last saw his Newfoundland, Lemmy.

Back in March 2016, Greg Marentette purchased an adorable Newfoundland pup. He named the dog Lemmy, after Ian Lemmy Kilmister, who passed away just a month before the dog’s birth. Like any Newfoundland, Lemmy was a gentle giant, albeit a bit of a handful.

So Greg hired Samantha Roberts as a dog-sitter to watch Lemmy while he went to work during the day. Samantha’s job was to walk Lemmy for an hour, and then take him home.

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A huge affection for Lemmy

But within a few months, Samantha became so attached to Lemmy that she started taking him out all day, and not returning him to Greg in the evenings! She also started taking Lemmy to service dog training classes. She even started a business using Lemmy as a model to train other people's dogs. 

At the time, Greg knew Lemmy was taking training classes with her, but he thought it was to learn simple commands, not to start a business.

A bizarre turn of events 

In August 2019, Greg told Samantha that he was going on holiday with Lemmy for a week. The young woman refused, stating that Lemmy was her service dog. He then received the following message from the young woman: "I have taken the dog to an unknown location and I am looking for a custody lawyer for Lemmy."
Greg decided to take legal action to get his dog back.

He submitted a receipt worth $1,200 for the purchase of Lemmy in March 2016, and checks for doggy daycare services for the months leading up to February 2018.

Dog sitter hires a lawyer

Samantha hired a lawyer to argue on her behalf. Her lawyer asked the judge for joint custody of the dog. The judge found that Greg was Lemmy's legal owner and ordered that he be returned immediately. 

Yet, as we speak, Lemmy has still not been reunited with his owner.

Despite Greg winning all cases and appeals in civil court, Samantha is not complying with the law. As a last resort, Greg is now bringing her up on criminal charges - one count of theft and one count of contempt of court. However, as we all know, things move slowly and it could be another few months before Greg gets to see his dog again.

“His lifespan is 8-10 years old. She’s stolen half his life from me. How do I get that back?”

Can you imagine not having seen your own dog since 2019? We certainly can’t. We hope the justice system doesn’t fail Greg this time. We wish him and Lemmy the best of luck, and hope to receive news of their reunion soon!

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