Dog Trainer Charged With Multiple Felonies After 11 Dogs Died in His Care

A dog trainer was recently arrested after 11 dogs died while in his care within the span of a week. And the horrors don’t end there; prosecutors say he and his girlfriend attempted to dispose of the evidence by taking the dogs’ bodies to different crematoriums.

Aimee Gutierrez adopted a nine-month-old Belgian Malinois named Saint just four weeks ago, Gutierrez shared in an Instagram post. After Saint struggled to get along with the two dogs already living in the home, her family put him in the care of trainer Kwong (Tony) Chun Sit for additional help. They enrolled the dog in a three-week program — and toward the end of it, her husband received a text from Sit, telling them that Saint had passed away in her sleep. “We were not given details. We were not given the chance to say goodbye. We later learned that she had been cremated without our consent or knowledge,” Gutierrez wrote.

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She later learned that she wasn’t alone — Saint was one of 11 dogs to die in Sit’s care; nine of the dogs died on the same day. Between June 13 and June 18, Sit and his girlfriend, Tingfeng Liu, dropped all but one of the dogs off at different crematoriums, reported ABC 7.

Several bodies were recovered at the crematoriums where they had been dropped off. Necropsies found that two of the dogs died from heat stroke, and another died from blunt force trauma. Conclusions are pending on necropsies for six other dogs.

“We don’t know how they died, when they died, his motive — we have zero answers,” Gutierrez told the Orange County Register. “I feel lost. Because no matter what, I will never know exactly what happened and why.”

Sit is facing felony charges of 11 counts of animal cruelty, 11 counts of animal abuse by a caretaker, seven counts of attempting to destroy evidence and one count of destruction of evidence, reported the Sacramento Bee. Liu is charged with accessory to a felony and destruction of evidence. When arrested, Sit and Liu were packed and prepared to flee, so bail was set at $550,000 each — $50,000 for each of the dogs who passed away.