Animal-Control Impersonator Demands $300 For Puppy

BRISTOL, Va.—A young Bristol woman was on her porch playing with a little stray puppy she’d all but adopted when a white Ford Ranger pulled up Friday. The Ranger had Bristol Virginia Animal Control stenciled on its side in red and blue letters.

A woman in a brown uniform with a badge on her belt got of the Ranger, walked up onto the porch and picked up the dog. Identifying herself as animal control, she said she was taking the dog to the pound unless the young woman wanted to pay a $300 fine. The girl caved and, in tears, said goodbye to her newfound friend.

When her father, Joe Kerr, picked his daughter up for dinner hours later, she was still sobbing.

“She had fallen for the cute little fella,“ said Kerr, who owns Kerr-Boswell/Tri-Cities insurance company. “It had become her dog, at least in her heart.“

The next morning, determined to reunite his daughter with her dog, he called the police department to see where stray animals are taken. They pointed him to Jones Animal Hospital.

But Jones told him they never received a black lab-mix puppy, with big feet and a tuft of white on his chest.

So Kerr called animal control. They said they never picked one up.

Animal Control Officer Deena Bouton said it seems someone, whose identity remains a mystery, was impersonating an animal control officer Friday.

When Bouton got word of the situation Saturday, she immediately knew it was a hoax: She was the only person who would have picked up an animal in the city that day, and she hadn’t. She also knew that threatening a $300 ticket was far from reasonable protocol.

Bouton described the dog – and the imposter animal control truck – over the radio, and asked police officers to watch for anything suspicious.

No one has seen the white truck since.

Bristol Virginia Police Capt. Maynard Ratcliff suspects the truck could be a retired animal control vehicle – a 1995 Ford Ranger sold at auction in 2005. But he said they remove all of the decals before vehicles are sold. The department is trying to track down what became of the truck. As of late Tuesday, they’d had no luck.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Sean Carrigan was two miles from the site of the dog heist, patrolling in the Eastridge Apartments about 2 a.m. Sunday, when he came across a friendly, bouncing black lab pup, with big feet and a tuft of white on his chest. The dog hopped in his cruiser, he said. No one was around. Unsure if it matched the description, he called dispatch, who called the Kerrs.
“When police brought him back at 2 a.m. in the morning, he ran right into her arms,“ Kerr said. “I was on the phone, and she said ‘yea, daddy, it’s my dog.’“

Kerr’s daughter found the dog six weeks ago hiding in the bushes of her apartment complex, hungry and scared to death.

At first, he wouldn’t come near her. So she put food and water out on the porch, went inside and watched him eat it through the window.

“He started to develop confidence in her,“ her father said. “When he realized she was his friend, not a foe, he would come and sit on the porch and let her rub him.“

She’s asked her dad several times if she could take him in. He told her that being a dog owner was a big responsibility, and to wait to see if he found his home to go back to.

On Sunday, the family bought him a kennel, a bunch of toys and a brand new tag with his new name: Blackie. He was at the vet Monday getting his shots.

Police are still looking for the person perusing Bristol in a counterfeit animal control truck. Bouton said people steal pets for a number of equally disturbing reasons: Some are sold to research laboratories and others are used as “bait dogs” in dog fighting rings. But, she said, the department has had no similar reports, and the number of lost and stolen animals has been down in recent months.

“Whoever pulled this stunt crossed the wrong family,“ said Kerr, an animal lover with three dogs of his own. “That could break a child’s heart. It could break an adult’s heart. And you just don’t mess with people’s feelings.“

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