Casa Grande Animal Control You Have a Problem

In late January, 10-yr-old Jason Hamilton was walking home from the school bus stop when he was attacked by three dogs (erroneously reported as two Pit Bulls and one Rottweiler in this article). The dogs, one Pit Bull mix and two Rottweiler (mixes) severely mauled the child, leaving him with extensive facial, torso and leg damage. It took baseball bats to get all three dogs off the child.

The child is recovering but still suffers emotional trauma from the horrifying attack.

All three dogs have been killed, relinquished by their owner even though several community members offered to take on one or more of the dogs. The owner claims the dogs have never been vicious.

But how would she know?

The owner, and I use the term appropriately as this woman was no true guardian to these dogs, apparently rarely interacted with the dogs, except perhaps to breed them.

You can see that this Rottweiler bitch has had puppies before. Her wounds, which appear to include head injuries, are untreated as of the taking of this photo.

 This dog is underweight, although not egregiously malnourished. His/her wounds have apparently been left untreated as of the taking of this photo.

 This is the third dog, also underweight and clearly frightened, possibly wounded.

So who is this dog owner gladly relinquishing all three dogs for lethal injection?

Casa Grande's own animal control employee Leticia Flores. While sure, I don't expect all employees of animal shelters to be star citizens, I do expect them to provide legally appropriate levels of care.

She faces 12 charges. The dogs lived outside. They were not licensed (like, really? How hard is that, just go to work and get the license). Their entire yard was filled with fecal matter (remember, this woman has kids too). The dogs had no shelter. They had no water. And they had not been fed properly in awhile.

I don't know if Flores is still employed with Casa Grande - my call to them went unanswered, but if you have any better luck contacting them, let me know: (520)426-9300 is their number.

I think the step-father of the victim is being generous when he says that if only Flores had fed her dogs, this wouldn't have happened.

If only.

Really, if only Flores did not have dogs to begin with. Or, if only Flores socialized her dogs. Or, if only Flores fed, watered and provided shelter. Or if only Flores treated these dogs like family companions and not resident dogs. From day one, these dogs were set up to fail. Flores' failure cost these dogs their lives. It cost Hamilton a lot of unnecessary pain and trauma and suffering.

If only.