This from today's Philadelphia Inquirer. (Note that reward is ONLY $250.).
Steve
Posted on Wed, Jul. 27, 2005
(http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/philly.news/local;kw=center6;c2=local;c3=local_homepage;pos=center6;group=rectangle;ord=1122465434288?)
R E L A T E D C O N T E N T Have you seen this dog? Tupper is
one of 30 painted Nippers in a public art project. He was taken from the
Lutheran Home of Moorestown between 5 p.m. Thursday and 7 a.m. Friday.
A missing Nipper
Moorestown wants its fiberglass art dog back.
By Jan Hefler
Inquirer Suburban Staff
Residents of Moorestown, just days ago declared the nicest place to live in
America by Money magazine, woke up yesterday to the news that it has a dog
thief on the loose.
How else to explain the overnight disappearance of Tupper?
One of the 30 Nipper the Dog statues scattered throughout the town as public
art disappeared between 5 p.m. Thursday and 7 a.m. Friday, Moorestown police
reported yesterday.
"There's a nasty Nipper-napper out there," said Paul C. Cranmer, executive
director of the Lutheran Home at Moorestown.
The 5-foot-tall, painted fiberglass dog had been sitting on the front lawn
of the East Main Street home - the very site where Eldridge Johnson, founder
of the Victor Talking Machine Co., once lived. The famous Nipper was the
company trademark.
A $250 reward has been posted. "Tupper - Tut's Pup" (his full name) is a
brown dog last seen wearing brightly painted Egyptian pharaoh's garb accented
with gold necklaces and bracelets. Oddly, he was also wearing blue-and-green
shorts. (This is Moorestown, after all.)
Tupper is the second Nipper to vanish since the public art project was
installed on Moorestown's streets June 6.
Director of Police Harry Johnson said the first dog mysteriously showed up
on the front lawn of a Moorestown police officer July 4. "He woke up in the
morning, saw the dog there, and called the animal-control people," Johnson
said, joking. The dog was returned before he was ever reported missing.
The Nippers cost $2,000 to manufacture and paint, but Virginia Devery, who
launched the project, said they had great artistic value and would be
auctioned off Oct. 9 to benefit five nonprofit organizations.
"They are works of art," she said.
Additional measures will be taken to protect the dogs. The 200-pound Tupper,
police believe, was dragged across the lawn before the thief removed the
bolts attaching him to a cinderblock base.
"Whoever did this should be locked up and the keys thrown away," said Ellen
M. Green, 58, a longtime resident.
Cranmer is putting up a banner that will say "Nipper, Come Home." Next to it
will be a giant bowl and dog bone.
"I think he'll turn up," he said. "He's big. Someone is going to notice him
and know that it was stolen."
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