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Dog thief caught on camera at Vancouver tattoo parlour

In the end, it took just seconds to steal Chloe.

A woman asked to pet the 10-month-old French bulldog, then picked it up and walked out when the owner, Shaughnessy Keely, was busy at the till of a downtown Vancouver tattoo parlour and gallery.

The 90-second incident was recorded on surveillance camera at The Fall Tattooing & Artists' Gallery at 644 Seymour, and Keely shared it on Instagram in the hopes of identifying the thief and recovering her pet.

A statement emailed to CBC News by Keely says it happened Thursday night just before 7 p.m. PT, when a woman came in and started looking through the gallery.

"Shaughnessy had Chloe behind the front desk and was bringing her out to go to the bathroom. At this moment, the woman approached her asking to pet Chloe and then asked to hold her," the statement says.

"This is pretty normal people always ask for these sorts of things. So Shaughnessy said it was fine."

The surveillance camera, presumably recording in standard time, shows this happened at 5:45:30 p.m.

"While this was going on one of the artists brought down his client and needed Shaughnessy to ring him through the till. She told the girl she would be a second and went not even 10 feet away to the cash register. This is when the girl slowly starts walking towards the door all the while holding Chloe and looking at art on the wall."

At the 5:46:22 p.m. mark, the woman is seen inching toward the door. Ten seconds later, she's out.

"Once she was close enough to the door she made a run for it and jumped into a black car with no license plate and sped off."

It took six seconds for her to get in the car, and for the car to pull away.

"Shaughnessy and her coworkers ran after it but couldn't catch up," reads the statement.