GUILDERLAND — Nearly two months after a fluffy white puppy was stolen from the Pet Zone at Crossgates Mall, police have charged Janira A. McCall, 17, with fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, a felony.

On Dec. 23 at 5 a.m., officers from the Guilderland Police Department along with the East Greenbush Police Department executed an arrest warrant for McCall who was arraigned later that morning in Guilderland Town Court by Judge Denise Randall and remanded to Albany County’s jail in lieu of $500 cash bail or $5,000 bond, according to a release from the Guilderland Police.

The West Highland terrier was stolen at about 12:19 p.m. on Oct. 25, Curtis Cox, deputy chief of the Guilderland Police, had told The Enterprise soon after the theft. He said the dog had been displayed in a stand-alone cage at the front of the store, “where you walk in,” to attract customers and, while “employees were distracted” toward the back of the store, two women “helped themselves to the dog.”

“They left with one girl carrying the dog under her arm,” said Cox. At the mall, the two women boarded CDTA bus 12, getting off at South Pearl Street in Albany.

Surveillance footage showed McCall holding the dog as she left the mall and again as she boarded the bus.

The dog had been dropped off at a homeless shelter in Albany soon after it was taken. Guilderland Animal control brought the dog back to the Pet Zone and said it was unharmed.

“We know who they were,” Cox said in October of the people who dropped off the dog at the homeless shelter. They were not suspects in the case, he said, and were interviewed by Albany Police.

The dog was worth well over $1,000 Cox said in October and the motive for the crime was not known.

McCall is scheduled to appear in Guilderland Town Court on Dec. 28 at 5:30 p.m.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer