SoCal Woman Charged With Kidnapping 'Yippy' Dog

Updated 1:53 PM PST, Mon, Jan 26, 2009

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HEMET, Calif. -- Police arrested a San Diego County corrections officer for stealing her neighbor's dog after she reportedly grew tired of the animal barking too much, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.

Diane M. Brown, 42, of Hemet, was booked Thursday and released on $5,000 bail, after she was arrested on suspicion of felony possession of stolen property for allegedly stealing the animal and abandoning it in Beaumont, the newspaper reported.

Riverside County Animal Services officers said Brown had filed multiple complaints with animal control about Spike, the yipping, fluffy white Maltese next door. Brown took the dog's owner to court, where a judge found the barking claims unfounded, said Riverside County Animal Services Sgt. Lesley Huennekens.

The Young family called police when their home security camera showed the dog running around in the front of the house, rather than in the backyard where it was normally kept before it vanished.

Meanwhile, Brown was reportedly spotted in Beaumont taking the dog out of a car's trunk and leaving it by the Cherry Valley Water District's building, before driving away. Brown is reportedly seen on security footage when she returned a few minutes later to remove the dog's collar, Huennekens said.

Two water district employees watched the episode and wrote down a license plate. They then took the dog to a vet, who scanned the dog for an embedded tracking microchip and found the owner of the unharmed dog.

Animal Services said they would seek misdemeanor animal cruelty charges for the abandonment of the purebred dog valued at $2,000. Grand theft charges were not pursued because Brown, a corrections officer in Vista was not seen taking the dog, said Animal Services spokesperson John Welsh.

Lora Young said her family has had an ongoing feud with Brown, whom she claims called and harassed her husband at work.

Young said she got Spike as a puppy from Okinawa, Japan, with her husband who is a Marine. She said she has sought bark collars and tried to keep the dog on the opposite side of her home, and was also seeking a restraining order against Brown.

A Press-Enterprise reporter knocked on Brown's door for comment, but could only hear Brown's barking dog inside. Brown is reportedly a corrections officer in San Diego County.