Neighbors Rally To Help Dog They Say Is Being Abused

Neighbors in a Houston condo complex turned to social media for help with dog on a porch who they say was being maltreated by his owner. However, the story took several turns that no one expected.

The situation, which was detailed on Second Chance Rescue NYC’s Facebook page, caused a social media firestorm and prompted animal lovers to call for authorities to rescue the dog and charge the owner.

The post, which was later accredited to Amber Cammack, a private investigator, details how she noticed a dog with a shoe-string (or, what many believed was a telephone cord) wrapped around his muzzle and wearing a diaper duct-taped to his hind legs.

She said that one neighbor complained to the dog’s owner that the dog was left on the porch for three days and that the dog’s urine leaked down and “dripped on my head when I’m sitting on my patio”. The next day the dog was seen with a diaper on his hind quarters.

Neighbors also say that the dog had phone cord tied around his mouth and nose allegedly because the dog had been whining too much, only for it to be replaced with a rubber band. “Today, they were ‘decent’ enough to replace the phone cord with a thick rubber band,” it says the Facebook post.

Cammack apparently climbed up the side of the condo building to snap pictures of the dog on the porch. She posted the photos on Facebook—along with the owner’s private information and address after she claims the Harris County Sheriff’s Office ignored her pleas to help the dog.

The post went viral and outraged animal lovers. It also lead to Cammack being briefly arrested after she refused to take down the post, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Despite the condo residents’ repeated calls to authorities and their concern for the dog, authorities decided there were insufficient evidence to warrant charges. The decision was made after a veterinarian, the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Control, and sheriff’s deputies had all visited the dog and examined the dog. All of them came to the same conclusion – there was no evidence of abuse.

The response was not the desired one for animal lovers.

“It wasn’t what we would consider an ideal situation,” Brian Latham, director of communications at SPCA, told the Houston Press. “We don’t believe the dog had optimal care. But the evidence we saw does not meet the burden of proof under state of Texas animal cruelty law.”

According to later reports, the dog, named June, is now back with her owner, who was not the person responsible for making the decisions about diapers and shoe-string muzzles. The owner’s brother, Christopher Whittaker, was in fact, only dog-sitting. Whittaker admitted to Fox News that putting a shoe string around the dog’s face was wrong but that he loves dogs would never intentionally hurt one.