AR-News: (AZ) Animal abuse locally results from neglect

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http://www.communitypapers.com/DAILYCOURIER/myarticles.asp?P=843479&S=400&PubI
D=11517

Animal abuse locally results from neglect
By MIRSADA BURIC-ADAM
The Daily Courier 
PRESCOTT – Animal abuse and neglect exist in Yavapai County and the tri-city 
area, but the number of cases and severity are not, by any means, alarming, 
according to the county’s animal control officer, Sgt. Laura Dean of the Sheriff’
s Office.

Dean said that she hasn’t noticed a significant increase in the number of 
animal abuse and neglect incidents in the county, although “we see animal neglect 
and animal cruelty a lot. There are more people moving in with more animals. 
A lot of the cases that we see are just benign neglect. We respond to all of 
them.  

Yavapai Humane Society’s kennel supervisor, Roxanne Krueger, plays with 
Tripod, a three-legged dog at the shelter. Veterinarians removed the dog’s mangled 
limb after a vehicle struck the animal. Tripod is avail-able for adoption at 
the shelter.



Courier/Jo. L. Keener

 “People do not take care of issues,” she added. “They do not know how to 
feed properly or they do not get proper vet care (for their animals). But no one 
case stands out in my mind as being appalling.”

If People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) receives information 
that applies to the unincorporated areas of Yavapai County, YCSO Animal Control 
checks those cases, Dean said. 

“We work with all these agencies because we have animal welfare at heart,” 
she said. “A lot of people are not educated in caring for animals. That is a 
part of our job too, to help educate them in how to do things so that they do a 
better job.”

Her seven-member crew covers 8,000-plus square miles, she said. 

“We are on the go a lot because the calls are very spread out in a lot of 
remote areas,” she said. “But we respond to all of these areas.”

She said if her staff finds that a livestock animal has been severely 
neglected or abused, they remove the animal from the property and then refer it to 
the livestock section of the Arizona Department of Agriculture because “we do 
not have a facility where we can take them and we do not have the trailers to 
move them.”

Rea Chornenky, legislative liaison for the Arizona Department of Agriculture, 
said her agency has received calls that allege serious abuse of horses. 

“We have received calls in the last year from the Yavapai County area that 
allege severe animal abuse issues in terms of horses,” she said. “Our records 
and our logs do not keep them according to what is proven and what is just 
alleged.”

“Generally, the calls are that a horse appears to be in poor condition due to 
cruelty or neglect, but not due to physical abuse,” she said. 

She said the agency receives 10 to 15 calls per month from the Yavapai County 
area.

“That is a bit lower than other counties,” she said, adding that those 
numbers refer only to average calls for 2003. “I suspect that the number of calls 
per month on Yavapai County animals is increasing simply because your 
population is growing. When residents increase in previously outlying areas, new home 
owners – people who are not familiar with the area – make a lot more calls.”

One complaint that occurs very frequently during summer months is that horses 
are standing in the sun without any shade available to them, she said.

She said they rarely receive any calls regarding other domestic animals such 
as sheep, goats, pigs or cows.

Larry Davis, Prescott animal control supervisor, said they rarely come across 
tortured or severely abused animals. He said the only severe animal cruelty 
case that he can remember in the past nine years involved a man, Robert James 
Lunt, who tortured his girlfriend’s dogs. Lunt pleaded guilty to two Class 6 
felonies of cruelty to animals in July. 

Davis said his officers mainly pick up stray dogs. 

“They are considered stray if they do not have any ID on them,” he said. “
And most of the times owners do come to collect them.

“There are no regulations for cats,” he said. “We do not pick up stray cats 
unless they appear to be injured or sick or if they bite somebody.”

He said currently a fairly low number of dogs is at their shelter.  “We could 
be as high as 40 to 50 dogs in here,” he said. “Right now we have about 20.”

Occasionally, the Humane Society does take stray animals into its shelter, 
Davis said. 

“But we do not trade animals back and forth,” he said. 

He said Prescott residents are allowed to have livestock within the city 
limits if they follow regulations that the city established many years ago. 

“There are a few people that have horses,” he said, but noted that they 
usually take good care of them. 

Humane Society Director Deborah Donovan said animal cruelty does exist in 
this area. 

“We do get calls, but animal control does the investigation,” she said. “So 
we do not get to see a lot of it.”

Leaving pets locked in cars or tying them to a tree without food or water 
during hot or freezing weather are forms of abuse that are common, she said.

She said that 50 percent of their cats are strays or abandoned.

“All stray dogs go next door to Animal Control,” she said. “But we are 
seeing an increase in the surrender of owned animals.”

The increase has been about 5 percent, she said. People are giving up their 
animals because they can’t afford to feed them, she said. 

However, the agency has not seen a substantial increase in abandoned animals. 

“Over the last 12 months we have taken in about 1,200 stray or abandoned cats,
” she said. “That is about the same that we took in last year.”

She said their shelter is currently full and that they have a list of people 
who are waiting to give up their pets.

“We just want to wait until something is adopted before we bring another one 
in,” she said. “That way we do not have to euthanize healthy adoptable 
animals to make room for someone else’s.”

She said a couple of people on the list have litters of 11 puppies.

“That is another issue – educating people on spaying and neutering their 
pets,” she said. 

Robin Petrovski, Prescott Valley Police Animal Control officer, said they 
rarely deal with severely abused animals.

“Generally, it is just a welfare check for water and shelter,” she said. “In 
14 years I have found three cases of dogs real thin. I’m sure there are some 
out there that we are not even aware of, but nothing that I have been involved 
in or dealt with.”

David Kuns, assistant police chief in Chino Valley, said he has not noticed 
any significant changes in their numbers of animal abuse or severe cases of 
late. 

“There has not been any increase that I know of,” he said. “If we believe 
that there is an animal abuse case, we take the animal to one of the 
veterinarians out here. If they determine that it is (a case of abuse), then we would go 
and cite the owner.”



Contact the reporter at 

mburicadam at prescottaz.com 






It can truly be said:  Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are 
the tormented souls. --Arthur Schopenhauer 
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