Scottsdale Woman Reunites With Stolen Chihuahua Jax After Nearly One Year

Alyssa Hurt came home from work on April 8, 2025, and noticed immediately that something was wrong. Through the glass front door of her Scottsdale apartment, she could usually spot Jax waiting for her. That day, the door was wide open and Jax was gone.

"Jax usually runs to the door to greet me and, when he didn't, I immediately knew something was wrong," Hurt said.

Scottsdale police confirmed there were no signs of forced entry and nothing else in the residence had been taken. Hurt called her ex-boyfriend the same day. He denied knowing anything about the dog. For more than 11 months, that denial held — until a social media tip broke the case open.

Hurt had spent those months blanketing every platform she could find: 24-Hour Pet Watch, Petco Love Lost, Paw Boost, Nextdoor, Ring, and Craigslist. Scottsdale Police had previously identified her former roommate and ex-boyfriend, Marc Auger, as a person of interest, but the case went cold. "I immediately suspected Mark, but when I called him to ask where my dog was, he gaslit me into thinking I was making the whole thing up," Hurt said.

The breakthrough came in February 2026, when investigators received new information indicating Auger had been in possession of Jax as recently as late 2025. Detectives began surveillance. On March 11, 2026, they located Auger at a Scottsdale hotel and observed him walking with two dogs. One was a brown-and-white chihuahua wearing a tag that read "Jax." A microchip scan confirmed the identification.

"He was observed walking with two dogs, including a brown and white Chihuahua wearing a tag with the name 'Jax,'" said Scottsdale Police spokesperson Sgt. Allison Sempsis. Auger was arrested and charged with second-degree burglary, booked into the Scottsdale City Jail, and bailed out shortly thereafter.

The reunion that followed stopped Hurt cold. "It was just surreal. I was shaking. I was crying in the middle of the airport," she said. Jax, for his part, took a moment to catch up. "At first, he kind of just looked at me and then he smelled me and then started licking me and tears coming down from him and from me," Hurt described.

The bond between them runs deep. Hurt rescued Jax from a shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the chihuahua has served as her emotional support animal ever since. She brought him to Spain while earning her master's degree. "He's a little world traveler," she said. "He's helped me through job loss. He's helped me through a relationship loss."

The reunion was captured on video and shared widely, including a TikTok post that drew significant public attention to the case. For Jax, a dog who spent nearly a year as what 12News called a cold case, the microchip that confirmed his identity turned out to be the detail that brought him home.