"I turned my back it happened so quickly he was gone," she said.
It's hard for the 49-year-old to watch surveillance video of a man running away with the 7 year old Shih Tzu and even harder to what herself failing to catch him.
"I ran after that guy and I yelled give me back my dog. That's my dog. Give me my dog," she said.
Maria says she tied Skylar at a pole to look at some stuff left outside a store. She says she never got more than a few feet away from him when he disappeared.
That was late Friday night at the corner of West 19th Street and 7th Avenue in Chelsea.
With the help of a Good Samaritan, Maria spotted the man with the black and white pooch a block away but couldn't catch him.
"Shame on you, you coward. Why didn't you go out and get your own dog?" she said.
Maria is offering a 300-dollar reward, filed a police report, and put up hundreds of posters around the neighborhood.
Maria's mother suffers from early stage dementia. She also has depression and degenerative arthritis. Maria said Skylar gives both of them comfort.
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