Yet again we see another ’slap on the wrist’ sentence after the cruel and brutal death of a dog at the hands of an owner! Daniel Eliseo Zepeda Perez, 37, of Rifle, CO, was sentenced this week on an animal cruelty charge stemming from the June seizure of a dog he owned, Dora, a 3 year old Mastiff who weighed about half what she should have.

When Dora was rescued from this trash, she weighed only 74 pounds — about half her normal body weight. She had chronic hip pain, two blown ACLs and bone damage from a hind leg injury that wasn’t healing well. Dora was apparently hit by a car when she was 9 months old.

Staked out on a cable across the driveway from an unused dog house, surrounded by broken ceramic tiles and loose screws in the dirt, she attempted to nurse her five puppies in her broken and emaciated condition. She literally had to drag he hind end due to the debilitating pain and injury.

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This is a wonderful piece of news that I am seeing more and more across the country, another county, Frederick County, MD, now has an ordinance which regulates chaining and tethering of dogs.

Dogs cannot be tethering any more than 10 hours in a 24 hour span of time and animal control is asking citizens to give a hand.

Frederick County Animal Control Division Director Harold Domer is asking citizens who see a dog tethered for more than 10 hours in a 24-hour period to document their observations and report it to animal control.

They should write down the specific times the dog was tethered, he said.

Owners found in violation for chaining or tethering will be given a 30-day grace period to set up new accommodations for their pet.

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