Back in July, Deputy Dakota Beck responded to tip to a home on Sybil Drive. She found 31 dogs malnutritioned and covered in filth.
"The smell of urine, feces, that kind of odor almost knocked me over," she says.
The dogs were rescued but some had to be put down. The owner, Sandra Lehto, was charged with 28 misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals. But one dog, Marty, an Alaskan Malamute, stood out.
"He stuck his head right out, almost he knew he was being saved, let me leash him, and when I got him to the truck to put him on the truck, he put his paws around my belt as if he was hugging me, and I was melted," said Beck.
Marty, and two other dogs, were sent to Michigan to be nursed back to health.
"They started coming out of shell, and they're a pair of hooligans," says Suzanne Sarlis-Hartwood, President of The Southwest Michigan Husky Club.
On Friday, Marty was reunited with Beck, his new owner. Beck says her new pet is healthy and thriving.
"He's a bit food driven, just because he didn't get fed for seven months and when I put his food down he tries to knock it out of my hand."
Many of the charges have been dropped against Lehto. She was placed on probation and ordered to pay fines for the rest.
Prosecutors typically handle cases like this -- if she is charged with 28 counts of cruelty, that's POTENTIALLY 28 years in jail. That will NEVER happen on animal cruelty cases. You may as well assume she's going to get probation. Well, what does a prosecutor consider reasonable? There is no way she would be on probation for 28 years - or even 14 years. They typically get the person to plead guilty to a few of the charges in exchange for dropping the rest. I would expect her to get at least 2-3 years of probation, but they may have only given her 1 year. That wouldn't surprise me because a lot of prosecutors consider it ONE EVENT rather than each individual animal suffering.
Note: A post on Facebook says this is the second time Lehto has been caught abusing animals.
(TWC News - Feb 26, 2016)
Earlier:
VIDEO CLIP OF ORIGINAL NEWS STORY:
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