Carson City Couple refuses to turn over stolen family cat, leading to questions on law enforcement, animal control jurisdiction

Imagine, one night your family cat goes outside and is spooked and runs off. You search day and night for him, posting fliers, offering rewards, contacting every lost and found page and humane society in the area. Just when you give up hope, you learn that your cat is safe and sound — only, it turns out, they're being kept at someone else's house. When you contact animal control and the sheriff's office to try and have your pet returned, they tell you its not within their jurisdiction, without offering exactly whose jurisdiction it falls to.

This has been the situation for Carson City resident Crystal Blackeye for nearly a year after her beloved pet cat, Anubis, went missing last October.

In June of 2019, Crystal went to the Reno branch of the Nevada Humane Society to foster kittens for the local non-profit. She had no intention of bringing home a permanent animal that day—until she saw a little black kitten. He stuck out his paw and tried to grab ahold of Crystal, yowling and meowing until she agreed to hold him. When she did, she said he curled up like a baby and began to purr, and she went home with five cats that day — four foster kittens, and one new family member.

“I felt like there was a soul connection that I’ve never had with an animal before,” said Crystal. “I have other animals, but I’ve never loved any animal the way I love him. He’s my animal soul mate. When I look in his eyes, I feel an almost human connection. Up until I had him, I thought people that talked like this were crazy."

On October 9, 2020, Crystal woke in the night to a scuffle outside at around 2 a.m. and her dogs began barking. They live on a busy street so she didn’t think much of it. Anubis didn’t like to use the litter box, so he would often go out through the doggy floor flap to do his business outdoors, but had never left the yard and was generally afraid of everything outside the house.

However, at around 5 a.m. Crystal awoke to find that Anubis was not in bed with her and her husband as he was every morning.

“I knew he was gone,” she said. “I just knew it. He never goes beyond the backyard, so I think he must have gone outside to go to the bathroom and got spooked and ran, and became lost.”

That’s when Crystal went to work. She spent $100 printing up fliers with a $100 reward and posted them all over the neighborhood. She reported him missing to his chip company, to the Nevada Humane Society, she posted him on every local lost pets page as well as craigslist.

People called with potential sightings of both live and dead black cats, which she followed up on each one, whether it was in the middle of the work day or late at night, and none of them turned out to be her Anubis.

She walked the neighborhood every night between 11 p.m. and midnight, calling his name and shaking his treats, she placed his basket at different locations nearby to try to lead him home.

“I called the Humane Society every day,” she said. “They knew it was me just by voice when I said hello and they’d say, ‘We still haven’t found him.’”

As the months went on, Crystal accepted that he must be dead and gave up hope of ever having him returned. She determined he must have been taken by someone or eaten by a predator.

However, in early June Crystal was checking her spam folder within her email when she saw a message from her chip company, Lost Pet USA, saying that her animal had been found.

“You can’t even imagine how I felt,” said Crystal. “I started crying, I was so relieved.”

The chip on her animal had been scanned by Lone Mountain Veterinary, the report told her, and when she contacted the vet, they stated it had actually been a mobile vet service that had been contacted by a couple who was in possession of Anubis.

The couple had come to get Anubis chipped and vaccinated in May when they found out that he already had a chip and that he was reported as missing or stolen.

According to Crystal, the vet relayed this information to the couple who said they would contact Crystal immediately, but Crystal has still never received any contact from them whatsoever. She doesn’t know who they are or where they live, all she knows is that they are in possession of her Anubis, who she thought had to have been killed. The vet couldn't give Crystal their contact information for privacy reasons, which Crystal understands.

When the couple was contacted again by the vet, said Crystal, they said the vet they would not be giving Anubis back because they had “fallen in love with him,” and that he “must have been traumatized or abused” because it took him a very long time to warm up to the new couple.

They said they wouldn’t return him until someone in uniform turned up at their door and told them they had to relinquish the pet.

So, Crystal contacted Animal Control, which is a part of the Nevada Humane Society.

“Lone Mountain had already contacted NHS, who said at first they weren’t going to do anything at all,” said Crystal. “When I spoke to them they told me it was out of their scope and there was nothing they could do. I asked for their regulations or any policies stating they do not have the authority and they couldn’t, that it would take too long to find that information, and that it would have to be a civil matter.”

NHS told Crystal she would have to file a criminal report, and she immediately went to the Carson City Sheriff’s Office and did just that. When she called NHS back they told her that because law enforcement was involved they were out.

There are specific statutes within Nevada State Law that outlines that all domesticated animals, including cats, are considered to be personal property, namely NRS 193.021. Under NRS 205.240 (b), there is an additional statute stating that a crime of petit larceny has been committed if anyone “Intentionally steals, takes and carries away, leads away, drives away or entices away one or more domesticated animals or domesticated birds, with an aggregate value of less than $1,200, owned by another person.”

This is where it becomes complex. Crystal doesn’t believe that these people intended to commit a crime when they took Anubis into their home. She has never claimed they came onto her property and stole him away, but, that a crime had been committed the moment they realized he was reported as stolen and missing and chose to keep him anyway.

A deputy made contact with the owners who refused to relinquish him, stating that they had fallen in love with him.

At that point, the deputy said Crystal would need to take the matter into civil court, which Crystal disagrees with. A crime has been committed, she says, due to the fact that these individuals are knowingly harboring stolen property.

“The whole possession is 9/10ths of the law is probably what these individuals are thinking, but that’s not a true and accurate representation of the law, that’s just a saying,” said Crystal. “(The deputy) called to tell me: ‘They declined, but if it’s any consolation they really love the cat.’”

Crystal stated she was very appreciative that the deputy took the time to investigate the situation but that she disagrees that there is nothing more that law enforcement can do in this matter.

As animals are considered personal property in Nevada, the situation should not be treated any differently than a stolen vehicle, said Crystal. If a person found a vehicle and began driving it without knowing it had been stolen, once they were informed that the vehicle was stolen and they continued to keep it, law enforcement would never tell the true owner of the vehicle that their hands were tied and they would need to take it to civil court.

In this sense, Carson City District Attorney Jason Woodbury agrees; under Nevada Statutes, animals are considered personal property, and his office is currently investigating the complaint.

According to Woodbury, the couple in possession of Anubis told investigating deputies that they found him in their neighborhood in December 2020, and took him in during March 2021. They told deputies they made “good faith efforts” to locate and notify the cat’s owner.

“Unfortunately, the report does not include any description of what those efforts were specifically,” said Woodbury. “I am working with the Detective Division in the Sheriff’s Office to get more information on the specific efforts that were made to locate and notify the owner.”

Those efforts, it would appear, did not include contacting the Humane Society, who Crystal was in constant contact with after Anubis went missing, and did not include having his microchip scanned up until they took him to the vet to have him vaccinated and registered as their own pet.

Whether or not the couple did make an attempt to find Anubis’s true owner is an important one: under NRS 205.0832, says Woodbury, theft includes an act whereby a person “comes into control of lost, mislaid or misdelivered property of another person under circumstances providing means of inquiry as to the true owner and appropriates that property to his or her own use or that of another person without reasonable efforts to notify the true owner.”

If it can be determined that the couple kept Anubis without attempting to find his owner, they could be facing criminal charges.

At this time, said Woodbury, the matter is still under review by his office.

Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong stated that once the DA's office comes to its decision, the sheriffs office will act on the situation based on Woodbury's determination.

Crystal, however, is less concerned with filing criminal complaints than she is with having Anubis returned to her.

In a public Facebook post she made on June 11, Crystal stated: "To the couple who found Anubis...you now know he has a loving home, the owner has been looking for her cat since he went missing. You need to put yourself in her shoes if the the table was turned. How would you feel? Pets are property in the state of Nevada. Do the right thing and return him to his rightful owner. Thank you."