Thieves make 4 trips on motorcycle to steal bags of dog food at animal shelter

An unusual theft at a New Brunswick animal shelter has left staff and volunteers heartbroken, but the community’s response has also renewed their faith in humanity.

Staff arrived Christmas Day at the Restigouche County SPCA in Dalhousie, N.B. to find thieves had smashed the glass in their front door.

The suspects had also allegedly let out one of the shelter’s dogs from its enclosure, because the dog was sitting patiently waiting for staff at the front reception.

Luckily, the suspects had closed the door behind them, so Bruce — a bully breed dog — didn’t escape.

“He was a good boy and he stayed in the shelter and didn’t exactly guard the place. He’s not a guard dog, I guess, but that’s okay,” said Lianna Edwards, one of the shelter’s managers.

“But to open up an enclosure on a dog that you don’t know, you’re taking a risk in itself.”

Upon checking the shelter’s security camera footage, staff discovered the suspects had made some other unexpected decisions.

Edwards says the surveillance video shows the two people arriving on a motorcycle and breaking in just after 4 a.m.. After walking around the building, they decided to steal about eight 30-pound bags of dog food.

The theft took four trips on the motorcycle, Edwards estimates.

“If they were planning to come and steal dog food, I don’t understand why they would be on a motorcycle and not in a car where you could do one trip,” she said.

Edwards says the shelter charges $100 per bag, which represents a low mark-up, because the SPCA wants dog owners to be able to afford the quality product.

“We’ve lost at least $800 worth of revenue, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but for a not-for-profit shelter, that hurts the pocketbook a lot,” she said.

“This last year, all of the shelters in the province and I think probably countrywide are really struggling … so it hits the pocketbook pretty hard when anything is stolen from the shelter.”

‘Feeling of gratitude’

However, before the staff could even consider the financial loss, they had to deal with the problem at hand: it was Christmas morning and there was a broken window in their front door.

Edwards pointed out that not only was it a holiday, but there aren’t many retail stores in the area.

“To get a new door, we wouldn’t have been able to get one. Even on Boxing Day, places would have been closed,” she said.

Their only option, she said, was to ask around the community in case someone had an extra door or glass pane on hand.

So, the SPCA posted on their Facebook page with the request.

“Within an hour, an hour and a half, somebody rolled up with a spare (door) that they have at home,” she said.

“Another gentleman rolled in to come and measure a window just to ensure the size because he was going to go home and cut some plywood to make sure the building was secure for the night.”

The two Good Samaritans ended up replacing the broken glass in the door with a new one “within 20 minutes.”

“I think that was probably the most emotional time for me was witnessing that. It wasn’t a feeling of helplessness but it was a tremendous feeling of gratitude because they came. Some of them were in their pajamas still, because they had just opened gifts at home,” she said.

“They didn’t they didn’t want anything for the window. They didn’t even want a charitable receipt, just as a donation of the item.”

The SPCA has filed a report with the RCMP, and are asking anyone with information about the theft to contact them.