Puppies worth $20,000 stolen

The lucky ones included a 7-month-old white female Maltese pup with pink-tipped ears, a 12-week-old cream-colored female Pomeranian that was curled up asleep and a 4-month-old black female rat terrier.

Those puppies remained at Puppy Love, a pet store in La Mirada, on Thursday as owner Paul Ro and law enforcement authorities tried to figure out who had broken into the store the day before and snatched 16 other puppies valued at more than $20,000. The stolen puppies were 2 to 3 months old, weighed 1 to 1.5 pounds and cost between $800 and $1,800 apiece.

Surveillance tape from the store showed someone shoving the pups into a black trash bag. A few escaped, hiding under tables or at the back of the store. The terrier, seen on the tape jumping out of the thief’s arms, was found later by Ro, trembling in the corner of a back room.

“This guy knew exactly about the puppy business because he took the valuable, teacup [size] ones,” Ro said. “I think he’s going to try to sell them on the Internet.”

The missing puppies include four Pekingese, three Yorkshire terrier mixes, two Yorkshire terriers, two tiger Chihuahuas, a Chihuahua, a beagle mix, a Pomeranian, a Shih Tzu and a Maltese.

Detectives who went to the store to pick up the surveillance tape said finding a suspect might be difficult without tips from the public. The quality of the grainy tape would need to be enhanced to see the images better, officials said.

Although the thief did not wear gloves, detectives were not able to clearly pick up his fingerprints, said Det. Marc Sierra of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Norwalk station.

Law enforcement officers have seen other thefts from a variety of places such as breeders’ homes, parking lots and swap meets, as well as pet shops, said Capt. Aaron Reyes of the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority and the Border Puppy Task Force, a consortium of California animal welfare and law enforcement agencies.

Reyes said many people take smuggled or stolen puppies and try to sell them casually, in parking lots for cash, using disposable cellphone numbers to go undetected.

“The Southern California community has an insatiable appetite for these puppies. They will melt your heart,” Reyes said. “The bottom line is, these puppies have resale value, and they have a real appeal.

“Sadly, without a microchip and a type of ID on these pups, who really knows who their owner is?” Reyes said. His only other advice was “buyer beware.”

Dogs, especially purebreds, are stolen in many communities around the country, said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club. Thieves very likely will end up with pups that are extremely anxious and overactive, hungry and not yet housebroken, she said.

“One of the things criminals are not considering is that when they are stealing these purebred puppies, part of the value is that they come with registration papers, which they obviously are not taking the time to steal as well,” Peterson said.

Designer dogs such as Shih Tzus, Chihuahuas, Yorkshire terriers and Pekingese may garner as much as $3,000 per puppy, Peterson said.

Thieves think “this would be easy, you just grab them and sell them,” Peterson said. “However, selling a puppy is not that easy.”

Some thieves have started to turn to the Internet as flashy puppy marketing sites have sprouted, Peterson and law enforcement authorities said.

“Unfortunately, in the last five years, they’ve just exploded, and the reason they’ve exploded is because there is no regulation of people who sell directly to the public,” Peterson said. “It’s an unregulated market that is growing.”

Thieves who cannot sell these puppies online may end up dumping the puppies on the street, because shelters often require a surrender fee and interview from those giving up their pooches, Peterson said.

Ro, 50, hoped his puppies would not suffer such a fate. He hoped for the best as he tried to get his business back in order. By late Thursday morning he’d replaced the shattered glass on the front door and had finished up his police report.

“I’m concerned about their health and their condition,” Ro said. “The way he put the puppies in the black trash bags gives puppies a lot of high-level stress. For babies, they’ll die soon and their blood sugar level will be lowered without the proper nutrition. I’m not sure the suspect will take care of them.”

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call detectives at (562) 863-8711.

tami.abdollah@latimes.com