Stolen dog turns up in Wyoming after police make routine traffic stop

Alaina Tripp never expected to see her dog Teddy again after he was stolen from her Ottawa apartment last fall.

So when the white miniature poodle showed up, dirty but unhurt, in a police stop in Wyoming 10 months later, it felt like a small miracle.

"I am so, so happy," said the 33-year-old. "I really never ever thought — and nobody ever thought, not the police, not my friends, family — ... [that] I would ever, ever see this dog again."

Tripp said she returned home last September to find someone had broken into her Centretown apartment and taken the four-month old puppy from his crate. Tripp said she believes the thief targeted Teddy.

"He was just a wiry little, hadn't-poodled-out, fluffy puppy-coat, tan-haired thing," said Tripp, who works as a grocery store cashier.

"He was pretty scruffy. He was living in a car. It was pretty wild because he'd been cooped up in the car so long.- Don Nethicumara, Riverton police

Tripp had just gotten Teddy after her previous dog got sick and had to be put down.

"It ripped my life apart completely," she said.

Tripp said she contacted local police and also the nearby Cornerstone Women's Shelter, which turned out to have video of someone breaking into her apartment.

"They shared the footage with the Ottawa police and we discovered who had taken him. We just hadn't been able to track him down," she said.

Late last month, purely by chance, police in the small central Wyoming town of Riverton found both the suspect and a much bigger and dirtier Teddy.

After Officer Don Nethicumara pulled over a driver for running a red light, he noticed the warrant out for the man's arrest.

Ottawa police told CBC News the man had been wanted in connection with a residential break-and-enter and an investigation is ongoing.

"Somewhere in the bottom, [the warrant] mentioned that he was in possession of a stolen dog named Teddy," said Nethicumara.

The officer confiscated the dog and the suspect was eventually arrested on possession and theft charges. CBC News confirmed the man pleaded not guilty in Riverton court on Monday and is currently in custody.

"[Teddy] was pretty scruffy. He was living in a car," said Nethicumara. "It was pretty wild because he'd been cooped up in the car so long. When I brought him over to the police department, he just ran wild.

"He's a really nice dog. He was playing catch with himself. That was probably the first freedom he's had in months."

Staff at the Paws for Life animal shelter in Riverton are now caring for Teddy.

Nethicumara tracked Tripp down online.

"I did a quick Google search with the name 'Teddy,' 'stolen' and 'Ottawa,' and it actually led me to a Reddit post," he said. "It actually led me to the Facebook page.... Someone had posted Alaina's phone number. We confirmed that it was Teddy and that she did want him back."

But getting Teddy back home is proving to be a challenge.

"The Riverton Police Department is working with animal rescues here and back and forth, and we're trying to figure out how to get him home," said Tripp.

Travelling across the border with a dog requires the proper paperwork, which is likely to be expensive for Tripp. And going down to fetch the dog in person is out of the question because Tripp doesn't currently have a passport.

"We seem to be hitting a lot of roadblocks and red tape," she said.

"The last couple of days, I've been kind of sad because I'm like, I found this dog and now it feels like I'm going to lose him again because I can't get him over the border."

Nethicumara, who owns three rescue dogs of his own (a Schnauzer-poodle named Darth Vader, a Chihuahua-cross named Tinkerbell and a mixed breed named Ariel), said he understands Tripp's frustration.

"If someone took my dog away from me, I won't stop at anything to get my dog back," he said. "One way or another, Teddy's going to get back to Alaina."