This can lead to Mistaken for Thief if someone is thought to have stolen something that was actually stolen by a pet.
Often seen in Kid Detective stories.
A variant is a pet owned by a thief which has been specifically trained for the task.
Can be Truth in Television.
Compare to Thieving Magpie, which isn't a pet (usually). Compare Pet Gets the Keys and Animal Assassin.
Examples:
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Board Games
- In Clue Jr.: The Case of the Missing Toys, the dog, the rabbit, the bird, the cat, or the fish stole the titular missing toy and hid it in the clubhouse.
Comic Books
- In Gotham Academy, Ham the dog has a collection of odds and ends from various students in a hole under one of the buildings.
Comic Strip
- In Knights of the Dinner Table, B.J. Felton's 50 pound neutered cat named Colonel Prowler has stolen many dice, miniatures and other items over the years and stored them in his bedding.
Films — Animation
- Abu, the monkey sidekick of the titular Aladdin, is a kleptomaniac who nearly gets himself, Aladdin, and Carpet killed by stealing something from the cave of wonders.
- One of the subplots in Titanic: The Legend Goes On involves a raven stealing Angelica's beloved locket, and the ensuing hunt to get it back from the woman he gave it to.
Films — Live-Action
- In the Fantastic Beasts series, Newt Scamander's Niffler is constantly trying to take shiny things. This ends up coming in handy in the second movie, as it steals the blood pact Dumbledore made with Grindelwald, meaning that Dumbledore now has a chance to destroy it and move against Grindelwald directly.
- National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2: Semester @ Sea features a monkey that frequently steals items, including the Pharaoh Diamond.
Literature
- The Cat Who... Series: Yum Yum has a habit of snatching small random objects, to the point where Qwill's nicknamed her "Yum Yum the Paw".
- In The Famous Five book Five on a Hike Together, the villains Maggie and Dirty Dick try to chase the Five away by stealing their food. Timmy goes into the villains' tents, and brings the Five some of Maggie and Dirty Dick's much nicer food. Julian quips that it's tit for tat, and fair exchange is no robbery.
- In The Nose Knows, a neighborhood dog ends up with the missing glove as well as many other missing items from the neighborhood in his doghouse.
- In The Doll People, one of the dolls' fears is being taken by the family cat The Captain, who will snatch them in his mouth if given the chance.
- In the Milly, Molly book "Sock Heaven," Milly's dad's sock goes missing and it turns out that Marmalade the cat stole it.
- In Slinky Malinky, the titular cat, who lives in a house, steals from the neighbors.
Live-action TV
- One winning video on America's Funniest Home Videos, entitled "Cinemadographer", was unintentionally filmed by a dog when it stole a camcorder.
- In The Brady Bunch episode "Kitty Karry-All Is Missing," Cindy suspects Bobby of stealing the titular doll. Eventually, they figure out that family dog Tiger was the thief.
- Community: Troy's monkey Annie's Boobs steals things around the college and hides them inside the air vents.
Theatre
- Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer from Cats. They're a sibling duo of cats who've been responsible for ransacking their owners' stuff, with their crimes including stealing winter vests, Woolworth pearls, and dinner. Their owners are fully aware at least one of them is responsible, but can't tell them apart, let alone figure out who.
Video Games
- In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the Takkuri steals items and delivers them to the man who runs the black market shop in Clock Town.
- In Nethack, your pet can be trained to steal from shops, with no repercussions.
- In Pokémon, Purrloin is a cute little kittycat known for stealing things.
- In general, and insofar as some Pokémon can be considered pets, any Pokémon capable of learning moves such as Switcheroo or Thief counts.
Visual Novels
- The third episode of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All, "Turnabout Big Top" takes place at a circus, where one of the animals there is Money the Monkey. Money has a habit of stealing shiny things, as Phoenix found out when the monkey stole his attorney's badge. Of course, the monkey ends up a key factor in the events surrounding the ringmaster's murder. When Money steals something, he takes it back his home, which happens to be the room of Acro the Acrobat, who at the end be exposed as the ringmaster's murderer. As Money is a strong monkey, one of the items he stole was a life-sized bust of the suspect, which Acro would end up using as the murder weapon.
Western Animation
- One Handy Manny episode revolves around a woman's new dog taking her socks.
- In the Martha Speaks episode "Martha's Life in Crime", it's revealed that before Martha was adopted, two thieves tried to adopt her and train her to steal, but it didn't work out.
- One episode of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated features a monkey that was trained by its owner to steal things like money and jewelry at the ring of a bell. It worked perfectly until the monkey eventually started bringing back bells with the valuables and then only bells and whatever was attached to them instead of the intended targets.
- In Toy Story of Terror, Bonnie and her mom stay at a motel whose owner has a trained iguana that steals the guests' belongings, especially toys to sell online.
Real Life
- In 2010, a Portswood, UK house cat named Oscar made the news
for stealing panties.
- Several YouTube videos feature pets stealing.
- Anyone who has ever owned a ferret can attest to this. If it's not nailed down, the ferret will make off with it and try to stash it in their hiding place (even if it doesn't fit). In fact it's right there in their name: Ferret derives from Latin furittus, or "Little Thief."
