The home of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi was broken into earlier this month.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office announced that the couple’s Montecito home was burglarized on July 4, with “high value watches and jewelry” stolen.
“The residence appears to have been targeted due to the victim’s celebrity status,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release Thursday.
In an effort to deter would-be burglars, the sheriff’s office encouraged residents of the area not to post to social media about their whereabouts and suggested leaving light or a TV on while away to give the appearance of someone being home.
Detectives and forensics technicians “have been conducting an extensive and on-going investigation,” the news release said, and the sheriff’s office is working with other law enforcement agencies to “determine if this is related to additional recent celebrity home burglaries.”
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Anyone with information on the break-in is encouraged to call Detective Daniel Kohli at 805-681-4150.
News of the burglary comes a week after DeGeneres and de Rossi mourned the loss of their beloved dog, Wolf.
“Last night we had to say goodbye to our dog Wolf,” the TV host wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of the duo on their wedding day in 2008 with the poodle-Maltese mix. “He brought us so much love and joy. I hope we did the same for him.”
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DeGeneres and de Rossi are also pet parents to dogs Kid, Augie and Mrs. Wallis Browning, whom they rescued last year, and three cats.
DeGeneres told PEOPLE back in 2009 that she had rescued Wolf “off the street,” and that the little dog had been “mistreated.”
“Wolf was in pretty bad shape. He was tiny … he was [malnourished], he couldn’t stand up. His back legs couldn’t support him because he had never been put down,” she said at the time. “But he’s just the craziest, sweetest dog now. Just a love!”