Updated 10/26/2008 11:42:05 PM
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- Not far from the historic East Lake Golf Club, off of Glenwood Avenue, burglars have been ravaging homes in the East Lake Terrace neighborhood, for weeks.
And when Krista and Johnny Kral came home Thursday afternoon to find their front door bashed in, they were crushed -- not just because their living room was ransacked.
"The door was just wide open, both the cats were sitting there just staring at me, and the dog was gone," Johnny Kral said Sunday.
Their dog, their six-year-old pit bull terrier, Sophia, was missing -- a pit bull they say is so timid she never likes to go outside by herself.
The Krals have posted signs all over the neighborhood hoping someone will spot Sophia. They're offering a reward of $1,000 dollars.
But their fear is that the burglars got her and might have already sold her to dogfighters, realizing quickly she is more valuable than anything else the thieves could have taken from the house.
"I'm hoping that it's not to fight her," Krista Krall said of the thieves' possible motive. "I'm hoping that it's nothing violent."
Thefts of pit bull terriers are not uncommon.
But usually the dognappers break into animal shelters, and steal several at a time -- like in Newton County in 2004, when the Sheriff broke up a dog fighting ring and rescued 14 pit bulls.
Within days, someone broke into the county's animal shelter and stole three of the dogs.
On Sunday in East Lake Terrace, Courtney and Adam Komich said as they walked their dog that they had their break-in about five weeks ago.
They're as frustrated as everyone else that the burglars, so far, can't be stopped.
"It's extremely prominent right now in this neighborhood," Adam Komich said of the rash of burglaries. "Just about every person that I know, personally, has been broken into."
But the burglars left the Komichs' dog alone -- a Chihuahua mix.
The Krals worry that the burglars have been looking for pit bulls, and struck gold when they found Sophia, even though the Krals say she is so docile she would not last a minute in the ring.
"You know, I hope they, if somebody did take her, they took her because they wanted her as a pet," Johnny Kral said.
A spokeswoman for DeKalb County Police said Sunday that detectives are investigating the burglaries; she did not have statistics immediately available, such as exactly how many burglaries there have been this year in the East Lake Terrace neighborhood.
The Krals are asking anyone who might have seen Sophia since Thursday to call them at 404-784-2469.
"She's part of the family," Krista Kral said.
