Dogs voluntarily given to rescue organization member
By Jon Johnson
GRAHAM COUNTY – A video of a woman whipping a dog with a leash spurned action from a dog rescue organization, which traveled to the Safford area and recovered multiple canines.
According to Graham County Sheriff’s Office reports, a neighbor had taken video footage of a woman beating the dog and uploaded it to Facebook. The incident took place at a residence on Cactus Street.
After seeing the video, representatives from Arizona Dog Rescue of Phoenix contacted the owner, who agreed to surrender them to the organization, according to the representatives’ statements to police.
Upon arrival, however, the dog owners relented and said the whipping was a “one-time thing” and they refused to surrender the dogs. The animal rescue representative said that was the opposite of what the neighbor had told her of seeing the woman abuse the dogs multiple times. The representative said the neighbor had shown her several other videos of the same woman abusing the dogs, according to the Sheriff’s Office report.
After being denied the dogs, the rescue representative made contact with the Sheriff’s Office and reported the dogs also appeared malnourished. A deputy advised that he would have Animal Control respond to the residence the following day to see if the animals should be removed from the home.
The representative then went back to the residence on Cactus Street and informed the dogs’ owner that if she did not surrender the animals to her she would return the next day with Animal Control. At that point, the owner agreed to turn over the dogs and the representative left with them without any further incident.
