GEORGIA -- Oconee County authorities charged a Bogart man and woman causing a disturbance Tuesday inside Walmart on Epps Bridge Parkway with animal cruelty after a deputy found a pet English Bulldog tied up in their hot car.
Deputies were called to the store about 12:30 p.m. At the scene, 32-year-old Heidi Klingelsmith was standing outside the men’s restroom yelling at her fiancee, who was inside, according to an incident report.
Walmart employees wanted the pair escorted out of the store and both Klingelsmith and David Jonathan Wood, 42, admitted they had taken prescription medications. Wood wanted nothing to do with the woman, but she kept yelling and demanding to see him, even after they were led outside the store, according to the report.
The deputy, who told the pair they would have to call for a ride because they could not safely operate a vehicle, looked in their car and saw an English Bulldog named Buddy in the floorboard with a rope tied around him. Buddy couldn’t move, the deputy said.
The deputy cut the rope leashing the dog, who was heavily panting, and later released it to an officer with the county’s animal control unit.
When the woman persisted with being disorderly, she was charged with public drunkenness and taken to jail while the man was allowed to wait for a ride. However, deputies were called back to the store within minutes because Wood was laying on the sidewalk at the main entrance asking people for money, according to the report.
Wood was also charged with public drunkenness and the deputy filed animal cruelty charges against both.
(Online Athens - July 18, 2012)
