An animal control officer in Stoughton, Mass. found a woman's lost dog -- only to give it away as a gift.As reported by the Brockton Enterprise, an animal control officer, Kristin Bousquet, was fired after an internal investigation and hearing revealed that she had found a lost dog belonging to Janet Torren, and inexplicably gave it away to a police officer and his girlfriend to keep as a pet, all the while telling Torren that she had not found the dog, a four year-old Yorkshire Terrier named Shai, who went missing on September 18. "Shai is like my child," says Torren, 59. "How could [Bousquet] think that I didn't love my pet enough to go all out to try to get her back?" Speaking with Paw Nation, Torren recounted the story of the efforts she made to find Shai -- and just in the nick of time. When Torren finally was reunited with Shai on October 1, the dog was en route to the airport with her new owners, who were moving to Florida.On September 18, Torren and her husband were visiting their son in a neighboring Massachusetts town when Shai escaped through a sliding glass door while the family was at breakfast. "I was frantic," Torren says. "We went searching for her, but couldn't find her." Torren called the local animal control office and left a message with her dog's name, description, microchip number and microchip company name. That evening, Torren and her husband drove home and called the microchip company, 24PetWatch.com, who told her that Shai's chip had not been scanned. Over the ensuing weeks, Torren returned to her son's town, where neighbors helped her search for her dog to no avail. Torren received a phone message from animal control officer Bousquet stating that she had not seen or found a dog that fit Torren's description. After leaving several messages for Bousquet, Torren finally spoke with the animal control officer by phone. "She was so sharp and rude to me, it was unbelievable," Torren recalls of her conversation with Bousquet. "She was telling me I needed to show her respect and that she was a police officer. I was frantic and so sick to my stomach, but it wasn't going to stop me from looking for my dog. I couldn't picture Shai just vanishing off the face of the earth."Torren received instrumental advice from a couple she met who told her to keep calling the microchip company. "I kept calling 24PetWatch saying that there must be something that could be done," Torren says. Finally, after numerous calls, she spoke with an employee who suggested she call another microchip company. "I said, 'wait a minute, don't they have one database to scan all the microchips?'" recalls Torren. The surprising answer was no. "There is no single database for all microchipped pets," says Torren. "It's only in the database that your pet is registered with." On October 1, Torren called a second pet microchip company, who said that her pet had not been scanned in their database. Unwilling to give up, Torren asked the employee to check back through their records. Lo and behold, Shai's microchip had been scanned -- at 9:15 in the morning on the very day that Shai had disappeared on September 18. More shocking was the name of the individual who had had the dog's chip scanned: none other than Kristin Bousquet of Stoughton Animal Control. "My whole body was freaking out," says Torren. "All that time I was looking for the dog, calling for the dog and crying for her -- and to think about the way [Bousquet] treated me."Torren immediately called Bousquet and left her a message, letting her know what she had learned and that she would be calling the police. Bousquet phoned her back, denying everything. "I told her exactly what I found out, and that I would filing charges against her," says Torren. Bousquet finally admitted that she knew where Torren's dog was: with her new owners at the airport in Boston, waiting to fly to Florida. (Bousquet had given away the dog on September 22, reports the Enterprise.)At the police station, Torren told her tale to the police chief, Thomas Murphy. "He just kept shaking his head," Torren says. "Then he got up and he left and he brought Shai in to me." Murphy had apparently located Shai and had the dog returned to the police station from the airport. "Shai was jumping on everything and on me. She was off the wall, she was so happy," says Torren. Though Bousquet has refused to talk to various press outlets, she did write an e-mail to the Enterprise on October 28, admitting that she was "not 100 percent truthful," that she was disappointed in herself and that "If I get fired, then so be it. I guess I will move on." Police Chief Murphy declined to comment on what Bousquet told him to explain her actions, other than to tell Paw Nation that "the matter was internally investigated, a hearing was held, and Bousquet is no longer employed" by Stoughton Animal Control. Torren decided not to pursue criminal charges against Bousquet. "I knew she [Bousquet] has three young children, so I couldn't do that to the children. She got her job taken away, plus the embarrassment, so that was enough."As for Shai, Torren says that her dog is happy to be home with Torren's dachshunds and cat. "They all get along great," says Torren. "Shai is the leader; she tells everybody what to do. When she was gone, the other animals seemed down. They kept looking for her, not knowing what was going on. They were so thrilled to see her, even the cat!"Did they have a party for Shai? "Of course!" laughs Torren. "She got a little Carvel ice cream and some toys. We're doing fantastic. I have my family back!"
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