An officer was driving down Southwest 9th Street around 4:20 p.m. Tuesday and saw Timothy James Gifford, 32, of Fort Dodge standing between the street and the dog, according to a police report.
“It appeared the dog was huddled to the ground and it looked like the male was hitting and kicking the dog,” the officer wrote in the report.
Then Gifford picked the dog up by the neck and the officer feared he would slam it to the ground.
The officer pulled a U-turn back to the scene but never saw whether the dog had been thrown down.
As police confronted Gifford, he became aggressive and said he’d done nothing wrong, the report states. But the dog was still huddled to the ground, sitting in its own feces, “shaking uncontrollably.”
“…She flinched every time the male made a movement,” the officer noted.
Gifford said he was trying to stop the dog from running into the street.
Chief Humane Officer Sergeant James Butler decided to impound the dog so a veterinarian could check its welfare. Butler said the dog belonged to Gifford’s girlfriend, and since the veterinarian found no injuries to the dog it was released back to her.
“She assured us she would not allow him to walk the dog without her,” Butler said.
Gifford was arrested on charges of animal neglect. He was booked into the Polk County Jail but released Thursday, records show.
(Des Moines Register - April 24, 2015)
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