COLUMBUS, Ga. — Sabine Stull owns and operates the Animal Ark Rescue Shelter and she discovered that one of her dogs was missing Wednesday morning.

Stull said, “When we came in here to clean the kennels and that’s when we realized that Paul wasn’t here and at that’s when we went into search mood and trying to figure out where Paul was and we couldn’t come up with an explanation that made any sense.”

The shelter owner says the day before people were playing with the dog, but she swore they returned him to his kennel and that’s when she started doing some digging on her own.

“I left the cameras running and that’s when I saw within minutes a car pulled up,” said Stull.

The shelter was able to capture the burglar on camera.

Major Slouchick from the Columbus Police Department tells News 3 what happened, “A black four door vehicle pulled up outside the business and a black female got out and went inside the business through an unsecured door. She took the dog, dog bed, dog food and apparently two candles.”

To make matters worse the dog was recovering from surgery and was on medicine.

On Thursday morning around 8 a.m. surveillance video showed ‘Lil Paul’ being returned to the shelter.

Stull said “They heard a crying coming from the usually empty play yard and they went to investigate and that’s when they found Paul.”

Animal Ark is going to create a Go-Fund-Me account to help pay for additional security at their shelter.

We’re told ‘Lil Paul’ he is being adopted on Friday afternoon.

Police are still trying to figure out why he was taken.

If you have any information please contact Police at (706) 653-3100.

If you’re interested in adopting a dog or cat from Animal Ark click here.