Animal Friends of the Valleys has posted a video of a dog theft that occurred on August 13 at their Wildomar facility.
LAKE ELSINORE, CA — Animal Friends of the Valleys staff are seeking help in locating a man suspected of stealing a dog from the shelter that he did not adopt. A white Maltese-Poodle mix known by the shelter as "Jewel" was visited and then pocketed from the animal shelter in what the CEO and Chief Animal Control Officer Maureen Middleton says "looked like a planned operation."
The video, published this week on the shelter's Social platforms, shows a man walking out with his hands in his pockets. Behind him, two children are seen carrying the small white dog known as "Jewel." A third person, a young woman, was seen watching the front door. She was not released in the video, as she appeared to be a minor, Middleton said.
"All five people were captured on video running across the intersection of Mission Trail and Corydon Roads with the little dog in arms," according to Chief of Animal Control Maureen Middleton.
They did not drive, or the facility could have captured their license plate and already been at their house to reclaim the dog or have the fees paid, she said.
It was mid-August when this group arrived at the Animal Friends of the Valleys facility in Wildomar to visit with the dog, who had been brought in as a stray. "No one visited the dog during its stray-hold," she said.
The group returned the dog to the kennel, saying they wanted to think about it before adopting.
"The kids immediately went back, and took the dog out of the kennel and literally walked out of the front door with it," Middleton said.
As is seen in the video, the man held the door open while the kids went in and took the dog, she described.
"This man came in with four underage children with the intent to steal that dog," Middleton told Patch. "That's unconscionable."
In the released video, the Animal Friends of the Valleys staff blurred out faces to protect the minor children.
"We called the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and will be filing a report at the Lake Elsinore station," she said. "It is what it is. This was appalling, they set it up, they all were together, they did like a domino effect to pass the dog out and through the doors in the main lobby."
This was an unusual circumstance, and we would have gotten the information from the parking lot, but they walked to the facility, according to Middleton.
"They did not get in a vehicle," she said. "This has happened before; we've had dogs stolen from the facility."
The dog, thought to be a Maltese-Poodle mix, came in as a stray and was brought in by a citizen, she said. Maybe it was their dog. The adoption fees were down to $25 that day, but if it were their dog, they would have had to pay more to reclaim it from a stray-hold.
This is not the first time someone has walked out of the facility with a dog.
"Dogs have been stolen from the facility before. The last time this happened was about one year ago, and that was by the owner," Middleton said. Typically, they are able to track down owners by license plates.
"Can you get the kennels open? Absolutely. If someone wants a dog, they'll figure out how to get it," she said. "If that little dog was here and it did not belong to them? If it were their dog, there would have been fees to have it released. Maybe they didn't want to pay their bill."