Animal rights workers allegedly caught on film stealing puppy from homeless man

Alleged representatives of French animal rights group Cause Animal Nord have been caught on camera restraining a homeless Paris man as they steal his puppy.

The video shows the campaigners push away the wailing man as he tries to stop them taking his dog, which yelps throughout the ordeal.

The video of the incident, watched over half a million times since it was posted on September 19th, has caused outrage in France with a petition on the website Change.org calling for an investigation into Cause Animale Nord being signed by almost 15,000 people.

A third man then grabs the animal and turns tail.

A female accomplice can be heard shouting at shocked bystanders as the dog’s owner chases the mugger down the street.

Nghi Le Duc, who filmed the scene, said three people from the group Cause Animale Nord took the dog “violently” and “mercilessly”. In a post on their Facebook page, they say the brief footage published by media outlets failed to provide the full context.

Mr Duc then shared “evidence” of the stolen dog’s fate, in the form of a photo on the Cause Animal Nord Facebook page.

The dog had dilated pupils and its cries heard on the video “are not normal”, said Antony Blanchard, the group’s chairman, in a statement.

Two perpetrators of the theft can be seen walking up to the man, whilst one snatches the small dog from behind his back.

“Vegan (name in memory of our beliefs), little dog, rescued at the Marche”, it reads. The police do nothing, we act. You too can take action, it just takes a little courage.

“[The dog] will be put up for adoption”.

After receiving a fierce backlash ranging from angry comments to death threats, the rights group defended the move, claiming the puppy had been drugged so it would stay calm and help the man beg for more money, and that it was not chipped or vaccinated. The group added, “It wasn’t a homeless guy, but a Roma…He’s screaming because it’s his livelihood”.

“Nowhere (in the group’s rules) is it stated that they have the right to remove without notice any animal or that is what they did by attacking a homeless violently to take his pet (a puppy)”, the petition states.