The Danbury News Times reports the owner of a Mamaroneck pet shop performed an illegal procedure at another of his stores on a sick dog last fall, just months after his arrest on similar charges, authorities said.
Doyle, who is the owner of the National Breeders pet shop at 154 Mamaroneck Avenue, was charged Thursday with animal cruelty and with practice of veterinarian medicine without a license.
This was Doyle’s third arrest since July, when he was accused of illegally performing a surgical procedure on a Neapolitan mastiff’s inner eyelid. The dog suffered severe bleeding and was eventually euthanized, official said. Doyle was arrested again in December and charged with witness tampering, the newspaper reported.
The latest warrant, signed by state Animal Control Officer Nancy Jarvis, says authorities were called to the store on Nov. 16 after a couple reported buying a sick puppy from Doyle. Jarvis and another officer then visited the shop for an inspection and found several violations, court records show.
The sick puppy had been sold after the store veterinarian found the puppy unfit for sale. State law requires dogs to be examined by a veterinarian before sale and every 15 days. The buyer told authorities that the puppy, who had healing sutures from a previous surgery, became sick within hours of leaving the pet shop.
During the inspection, authorities found two other sick puppies in isolation. One of them, a 5-month-old St. Bernard named Buddy, was in an old storage area within reach of an electrical outlet, according to the warrant.
The store veterinarian, Dr. Wesley Baff, of Plumtrees Animal Hospital, had deemed Buddy unfit for sell because of a hygroma, a fluid-filled sac or a cyst, on the left elbow area.
Authorities said two former employees later told them Doyle tried to remove the hygroma at the store in late October, without a veterinarian or an anesthesia. At the time, Doyle took a needle and stabbed Buddy’s elbow twice and squeezed it, but only blood came out, court records show.
One of the former employees told police her boss was trying to drain the mass from Buddy’s elbow so the veterinarian would find the puppy fit to be sold, according to the warrant. The woman told police Doyle “didn’t want the veterinarian to realize the puppies were sick because he didn’t want to spend money to take care of them.”
