A California dog trainer and his girlfriend were taken into custody after at least ten dogs died in their care on the same day.
Kwong ‘Tony’ Chun Sit, 53, and his 23-year-old girlfriend Tingfeng Liu are facing animal cruelty and destruction of evidence in connection with the suspicious dog deaths.
On Wednesday, the trainer called a dog owner and told them the pet died in their sleep and had been cremated.
“The one family reached out to us and thought it was kind of suspicious that their healthy dog died with this trainer,” Police Spokesperson Kyle Oldoerp said.
Further investigation revealed that at least ten dogs died under Sit’s care, nine of them on the same day.
The dogs were reportedly recovered from several crematoriums.
“Our Animal Services Unit and patrol officers immediately began investigating the circumstances,” the department said.
Veterinary professionals will be performing necropsies to determine the dogs’ cause of death.
“Our priority is determining if the death of the dogs was accidental or intentional,” police said.
“If they all died of an accidental poisoning, or something that was all the same, then it’s like, OK, maybe this is accidental,”
“But if it’s not, and they’re different causes, then that could take us down a different path.”
