Life at Home

Tied Up for a Few Minutes, Gone in Seconds: A Chicago Dog's Close Call

A family left their Sheepadoodle leashed outside a Lincoln Park daycare and came back to an empty leash. Here's how strangers brought Charlie home, and why trainers say tying a dog up outside is riskier than it looks.

By James Okafor, Rescue & Advocacy Writer

February 23, 2026 · 5 min read

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It took only a few minutes. That’s the part that haunts every dog owner who hears this story.

In February 2026, a Chicago family tied their five-year-old Sheepadoodle, Charlie, to a leash by a Lincoln Park daycare while one of them ducked in to collect the kids. When they came back, the leash was there. Charlie was not.

A rushed pickup, an empty leash

Erin Franzblau has been open about how it happened, and about the fact that, in hindsight, it shouldn’t have. She was closing out a long workday, her husband Sean was traveling, and she was solo-wrangling three young children at pickup near Armitage and Clifton avenues. Rushing, she tied Charlie outside a window where, she figured, plenty of people could see him. Charlie normally jumps up to greet the family the moment they appear. This time, when they came out, he was simply gone.

Franzblau started asking everyone nearby where he’d gone. Surveillance footage told the story: a person in a dark hoodie had unclipped Charlie and walked off with him, heading west. The dog, by the family’s account, was shaking, though the woman on the video appeared to be handling him gently.

The Franzblaus, who adopted Charlie off a long waitlist during the pandemic in 2020, before they had kids, did the only things they could. They spread the word everywhere and offered a $5,000 reward for his return, no questions asked.

The city showed up

What happened next is the reason this story traveled. Two strangers who’d seen the news coverage spotted Charlie inside a Target. They followed the dog and the person who had him back to an apartment, kept watch, picked the trail back up as the suspect left again, and then called police and the family. Officers moved in, and Charlie was secured. Video from the reunion shows Sean Franzblau scooping his dog up into his arms.

The family credited the outcome to an improbable coalition, friends, neighbors, local news, police, and above all hundreds or thousands of complete strangers who fanned out online and flooded them with tips. In a final grace note, one of the two anonymous good Samaritans handed over their half of the reward to the other, saying the other person needed it more. Once Charlie was safe, local outlets reported, police arrested the person suspected of taking him.

It’s the happy ending everyone wanted. It’s also, the family has been the first to admit, a warning.

The risk hiding in a quick errand

Leaving a dog tied up outside, even for a couple of minutes, even in full view of a window, carries more risk than most people register. Theft is only the most dramatic possibility. Dogs can slip a collar or harness. They can get spooked and reactive with strangers crowding them. They can snatch something off the ground that no one sees. The dog is alone, restrained, and unable to remove themselves from anything that goes wrong.

“The problem with tying a dog outside a shop is that you’ve taken away their ability to leave a bad situation, and left them with none of the tools to handle it,” says Dr. Amara Solis, a veterinarian on the Pet Times team. “Most family dogs aren’t trained for that kind of exposure. All it takes is one stranger, one loud noise, or one person with bad intentions, and a calm errand becomes an emergency.”

Some trainers won’t sign off on the practice at all, arguing there are simply too many unpredictable variables when a dog is anchored outside a business. Others say it can be acceptable in narrow circumstances, if you truly know your dog is calm, the stop is genuinely brief, and you can see and check on them every couple of minutes to be sure they’re safe and that people are leaving them alone. The honest middle ground for most owners: the safest tie-up is the one you don’t do. Bring the dog in where they’re allowed, leave them home for quick errands, or bring a second person who can stay with them.

Charlie’s story ended with a dog back in his family’s arms and a city that refused to let a stolen dog stay lost. Not every dog gets that ending, which is exactly why the few minutes it takes to skip the tie-up are worth it.