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Stolen Dogs Returned to Pet Shop Owner: Tale the of Pups

Posted on: Friday, 7 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Faith Ford, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Apr. 7--Shortly before noon on Thursday, Lendsay Guerra placed a blackand-brown Rottweiler puppy in pet shop owner Sandy Pflegl's arms. Three down, nine to go in the puppy search that has sent Cedar Grove authorities and Pflegl racing around the area to recover a dozen stolen dogs. The canines -- worth about $10,000, according to Pflegl -- were taken from The Pet Cottage in Cedar Grove overnight Monday, Cedar Grove Police Lt. Daniel Blue said. On Tuesday, the dogs started appearing in backyards and on roadways in the Callaway and Springfield areas.

"I think that the publicity has caused (the thief) not to be able to sell them without getting caught so they're just dumping them on the side of the road," Blue said.

Police have identified a female suspect, but no arrests had been made as of Thursday evening.

"We're working on that," Blue said.

There was at least one witness to the burglary, according to Blue. The thief broke a window, Blue said, and hauled the dogs out in a pet carrier.

Guerra and her neighbor, Perry Frederick, said a woman in a truck dropped off four puppies on Everitt Avenue on Tuesday afternoon as children in their subsidized housing complex, Gardner-Dickinson Memorial Homes, were walking home from school.

"She was asking, 'Do y'all want dogs?'" Frederick said the children reported.

Frederick said he knew the dogs -- two Rottweiler and two pug puppies -- were expensive and he grew suspicious. He and Guerra shared responsibility for one Rottweiler puppy.

Guerra said she had planned to find a permanent home for the dog, but Frederick answered the mystery of the dog drop-off when he saw televised reports of the theft. A call to authorities led to the exchange in their neighborhood parking lot on Thursday.

Pflegl said she is thankful that the dogs were dropped in inhabited areas, rather than in the woods where they might have starved.

"I'm glad that they showed up at people's houses," she said.

The stolen lot included one adult and three Yorkshire terrier puppies, two Shih Tzu puppies, four Rottweiler puppies and two pug puppies. The animals range from 6 to 8 weeks old, Pflegl said.

One Shih Tzu was recovered Wednesday on a Springfield roadway, and a Yorkshire terrier that had been dropped in a fenced Callaway yard was returned Thursday morning. Pflegl said the terrier belongs to her granddaughter.

It was happenstance, Pflegl said, that the dog had been left at the shop overnight. She said her granddaughter had planned to groom the dog Monday, but decided to put the task off until the next day and left the dog at the shop.

As of Thursday evening, only three dogs had been recovered, but Blue said he expected to recover three more from the apartment complex where the Rottweiler was found earlier that day.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The News Herald

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