A 16-year-old was arrested and charged Saturday with
burglarizing his ex-girlfriend’s home on Forsyth Drive and stealing her two pitbull puppies.

Police say Steven Lamar Brown drove up to the drive-through window where 18-year-old Sharmaine Hill was working and showed her that he had the puppies.

Brown apparently entered Hill's house some time between 7 and 11 p.m. Saturday while her mother was asleep and took the puppies from Hill's bedroom, according to Chapel Hill Police Lt. Kevin Gunter.

Carrboro Police Officer G. Mayfield responded to a house on Broad Street Saturday and found a mother dog tied up beyond the reach of her two tiny puppies during a heavy rainstorm.

"One of them was about to drown in a puddle because it could not hold its head up," Mayfield wrote in an incident report. "The other one was trapped near the house. Both puppies were young enough that neither of them had their eyes open. The mother was tied up to a tree, and she had gotten her leash wrapped around a few pieces of lawn furniture and could not get to the puppies. The puppies appeared to be extremely hungry."

Emergency Animal Rescue Services took all three dogs into custody.