Steve Trezon
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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thank goodness she found her dog! i don't know what i would do if that happened to me. i woulda said screw you to Bousquet and pressed criminal charges.
What a rotten individual, screw her, she's no animal lover, that animal officer. she's an officer of sin and deceit. i would embarasses the crap out of her!! Amazing how these people get jobs in the animal industry, she didn't act alone. whoever scanned the dog, was an idiot too. makes me sick.
I don't know if I could be this kind and not press charges no matter how many kids she has....she got off lucky....
I am not one to comment on every little thing, however I had to weigh in on this one. If I had found out that someone had given away my lost pet without my permission , I would use my last breath to make sure that she paid for her actions with everything the law had to offer. If I had to knock on doors to tell people what she had done and follow her around to potential employers , I would .She WAS the one person that you WOULD THINK would want to help people get thier lost or stolen pets back. What she did was absolutely unthinkable. Children or No, I would have thrown the book at her. Making a decision to adopt a pet is just as important as making a decision to have a child. A respomsible pet owner and caring person promises to give that animal attention ,quality food . clean water and bedding . He must want to spend time with them to cuddle and give them the best health care that they can provide and afford. However the most important thing is to keep them out of harms way. Dogs and cats stray. They are curious and some like to run past thier own little universe. They need us to ride herd on them and make good decisions for them, When a person that works in a position to make decisions for other peoples pets, they should be thoroughly checked out and closely supervised. Is does not take long to see what is in a person's heart and thier attitudes. This woman should be punished to the FULLEST extent of the law and in my opinion beyond that. I can imagine what that poor owner and her PUP went thru. SHAME on that officer on so MANY LEVELS !!!!
i am so glad u got your puppy back, i have a little dog that i would go to the ends of the earth for, the woman should be fired,s she is a bad person...............donna
This Animal Control person, based on the way she treated the animals in her care, I would be very, very worried about her children. How did she ever get that job?
Maliflous - You are one stupid individual to post such an idiotic comment.
That is stupid if any of my three dogs(dashound,mutt&shih tzu) got loose and I asked somebody that is sopost to help me get my pet back to help me find them and they lied right to me. also i would not only call the police i would also get her/him fired and i would sue the for 100 (so i dont take all of there money) and I would do this if i dident sue them i would make them pay for my dogs next checkup and then make them buy a thing of dog food and some toys. but still i dont think that is right and i feel that pirsones pain i had a dog runaway from me and she dident have a chip and we called people and asked arround the naborhood but she never came back.but that is all i have to say i dont know if the makes sence or if the words are spelled right i am only in 7th grade and have a vocabulary of a faling 3rd grader!
Why would she think the animal was hers to give away? She had the microchip scanned and knew who it belonged to as well. She should never be in a position of any responsibility again. I wouldn't trust her with anything, and especially not with money. She is a dishonest, uncaring person who thought she could get away with this, and was even sharp with the owner of the dog to boot. And she just says she wasn't completely truthful and "if" she's fired she will just move on. Look out for her, she has no concept of right and wrong.
I'm sure glad she got her dog back. I wasn't that lucky, I lost my little Pom Ruff, and I never got him back.I called animal control every other day. He wasn't found dead or alive, so somebody had him and wanted to keep him.
I would press charges too. She got away with it and that wasn't right
I work at a kennel in Stoughton. What Bousquet did has horrified the town's citizens. Not a single person I have spoken to defends what she has done. A client told me that her dogs got loose one day and Bousquet told her the next time it happened, she wouldn't be getting her dogs back. She said Bousquest was so rude to her. It makes me wonder if this isn't the first time she has done this. If I were the dog's owner, I would definitely be pressing charges.
I'm glad to read your commentary, because I just got done reading an Enterprise article about all of the friends and family of this ACO defending her actions as "stress related" and "in the best interest of the dog" etc. I couldn't believe she had so much support for dog-napping this way. She flat out stole that dog. She'd scanned the dog, found it had an owner, and disregarded the information so she could gift the dog to a friend. That's a complete abuse of power and I tend to think she should be criminally prosecuted as well. Who knows how many other times she's done this sort of thing and gotten away with it? Power corrupts, and this is a perfect case that proves that old adage. It's like she had a little bit of power and used it to punish pet owners she didn't care for. She's out of a job there, but what is to stop her from being hired elsewhere without a criminal history to follow her? All she has to do is move and she could start up in a new location where she left off in Stoughton. It is good to know, however, that she doesn't have the broad support that the article I read in the related section leads readers to believe.
Remember that serial killer/rapist who was an enforcement officer of some sort and totally abused his power for many years before he was finally caught and revealed as a total monster. Makes you wonder how many other lower level authority figures such as this are really sociopaths and take the job as a warped means to exert power and control over others. I would rate what she did right up there with the worst sociopaths. She stole someone's family member!!!
This person obviously enjoys exercising power over people and has sadistic attributes. She either does not understand the bond that people have with their animals (and should therefore never have worked for animal control) or lacks empathy period. Someone commented that they were concerned for her children. She seems pretty cruel, so. . . .
Hey, # 11 KO - The monsters went by BTK, meaning Bind Torture Kill. Just as you say, he did threaten animal owners and did put down animal after animal. He even shot a woman's dog right in front of her on her own front lawn. The dog was not threatening.
This story brings to light of how authority can be miss used selfishly. You hear of stories of Officers, Doctors and individuals with authority etc. get "special treatment" but a dog officer stealing a beloved pet, thats over the top! Now I hear others remarking on this womans mistreatment and wondered how she got away with it for over 7 years. At least, Thanks to Janet Torrens persistance pet owners can be reassured there is something you can do, one person can make a difference!
I'm sorry, children or not, this woman deserves to have criminal charges against her. What she did equates to stealing. Maybe it would teach her children the lesson of not to steal.
I can relate to a lost pet as my cat got out of my truck in ILL. drivimg from AZ to NYS. Went on line to Pet Finder with photo an got a call 3 weeks later that a couplr had found and cared for her. Drove 1000 miles to get her, she made the paper in small town. so there are some good people out there as far as this person is concern I wonder if it was one of here kids that was given away???
I agree this woman needs to have charges brought up against her. However i disagree in it being stealing, its more like kidnapping......almost equal to finding a baby on the street and giving him away instead of trying to locate original parents. This woman is cold as ice, and can only wonder if she gave away the dog or sold it. Plus if you look at her picture, obvious b****. She 'admits to not being 100% truthful'? WTF does that mean, in otherwords you lied your arse off, there is no % in honesty. THROW THE BOOK AT HER!!!!