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Pet Store Burglars Steal 3 To 6 Puppies

Owner Of Pet Store Charged With Animal Cruelty

POSTED: 3:06 pm MDT June 20, 2008
UPDATED: 4:49 pm MDT June 20, 2008

The Adam's County Sheriff's Office is reviewing surveillance video to find out who stole three to six puppies from a kennel during a Thursday night break-in.

Someone broke the glass on the front door of the North Washington Street Kennel, grabbed the puppies and took off, said Sgt. Candi Baker, with the Adam's County Sheriff's Office.

She said the break-in occurred sometime after closing and before the store opened, but did not give an exact time.

The owner of the Washington Street Kennel was charged with animal cruelty last week for allegedly having too many puppies in one cage at another pet store.

Jeff Fortin owns the Pet Spot pet store in Longmont. He was cited with 34 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty after police said they found puppies crammed into very small kennels at the Pet Spot.

Longmont police had been called to the shop on June 3, when a burglar alarm sounded.

"When we got into the back room we noticed a large amount of puppies crammed into very few kennels," said Stacey Graham, a patrol officer who responded to the store.

Graham said she found 13 small puppies in a 2-foot by 4-foot container and seven medium-sized dogs in a container that was the same size.

"When the puppies were moved they began to urinate and defecate. There had been no room to do this in the tightly packed kennels," Graham wrote in the police report obtained by 7NEWS.

According to the report, an employee had been instructed to move all the dogs off the sales floor at night.

"The animals were to be locked into back rooms in case of a break-in," the report said.

Fortin, who also owns a pet store in Greeley, said he would "never allow that to happen," and said his employees violated company policy.

"I had an employee who would lie to make their jobs easier," Fortin said.

Fortin said the employee, who has since quit, took the puppies to the back so a fellow worker would not have to clean the sales floor the next morning.

"I have never been cruel to animals," Fortin told 7NEWS.

A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture said it has received four complaints over the past six months on Pet Spot in Longmont.

Anyone who has information about the case is asked to call the Adam's County Sheriff's Office asked 720-322-1313.

This is the second report of puppy theft this week. Eight pit bull puppies were stolen from the Boulder Valley Humane Society on Tuesday night. Six of them were recovered.

Please watch 7NEWS at 10 p.m. for a live report.


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