It’s sad to see any kind of crime within our community, but sometimes violations of the law are even less understandable than others.

We were surprised and saddened to learn that Sparky the Fire Dog’s costume was stolen Monday from a vehicle parked at the station three firehouse. The theft of a dog costume may seem like a small, inadequate crime to use column space on, but it’s far from that.

Sparky made a lot of kids around our community smile by showing up to events and dancing and being the life of the party.

He’s become the well-recognized mascot of our fire department and the firefighters who put the costume on do a great job.

What we can’t wrap our head around is why anyone would want a full size Dalmatian costume or what they would do with it. It’s not as if the person or persons who took the costume can wear it around town or take it to a pawn shop to make a quick buck.

But whatever their prerogative is, we hope Sparky is returned in a quick manner.

The fire department is allowing the dog costume to be returned with no questions asked and without releasing information on who returned it.

The hope is that Sparky, who has been the fire department’s mascot for the last four years, will be back in time for Monster March and Christmas celebrations.

We sure hope that’s the case.

It would be a shame for our area kids to be let down because Sparky the Fire Dog wasn’t able to make an appearance at their school in the upcoming weeks.