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Man puts puppy in pants and slips off
He gets away, but the Largo pet store theft is caught on camera.
By JONATHAN ABEL, Times Staff Writer
Published October 19, 2007
LARGO - In the annals of puppy theft, is there any technique more clever - or degrading - than stuffing a puppy down your pants? Yet that's exactly what police say a man did in a Largo pet store this week - in front of a surveillance camera. Three men, two woman and a child walked into All About Puppies pet store at 7190 Ulmerton Road on Monday. They said they were vacationing from New York. They hovered around the puppy-filled cages. In the back of the store, one man grabbed hold of a fawn-colored pug puppy with a black face. Retail value: $900. He put it in his shirt at first, police said, but then he looked for a better place to conceal it. The unnamed man took the unnamed puppy and tried farther south, pushing it into the front of his pants. Then he left the store. The rest of the group followed a few minutes later. All told, the theft took six minutes. Store manager Amanda Julian, who was not there at the time, said the thieves were the only customers in the store. One of the women, a grandmotherly figure with a curler in her hair, started making a fuss, according to Julian: "She was saying, 'Oh, my gosh. I can't believe you didn't tell me about the curler. I can't believe you didn't tell me about it.'" Another woman was eyeing the employees. The other two men blocked the theft from view. A few hours later, employees realized that they were one puppy short. They reviewed the tape and spotted the theft. The stolen pug was among 85 puppies in the store. He was in an open-topped cage with his brother, who was sold the next day, and a Shiba Inu, Julian said. Monday's stolen puppy was implanted with a tracking chip so next time it goes to the vet it will be recognized as stolen. "It's a live animal," Julian stressed. "It's not a shirt that you're stealing. It's not something you can throw in the closet. It needs food. It needs medical attention." Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4157.
[Last modified October 19, 2007, 01:49:28]
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