TUCSON, Arizona (13 News) – Animal rights activists are calling on the Pima County Sheriff’s Department to do more about a piece of land in Summit called Dogpatch.
People have been leaving trash behind for years, but what’s worse is that they’re leaving live animals there to die. Summit is located near Old Vail Road and Country Club, just south of Tucson International Airport.
Erick Munoz received unexpected news on July 30th.
“One of my kids calls me and says, ‘Hey, you know what, we found a horse,'” Munoz said. “So I said, ‘What do you mean you found a horse?'”
A two-and-a-half-year-old starving foal was thrown away like old car tires or sofas.
“There are a lot of areas here where they dump their garbage,” Munoz said. “We saw a few dead horses just rotting.”
The foal, named Little Man, was the sixth horse to be purchased from the Dogpatch area by the Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary.
Help came too late and he had to be put down.
“Unfortunately, he had to be euthanized in the horse trailer in the Circle K parking lot,” said Karen Pomroy, founder of Equine Voices Rescue & Sanctuary. “The vet met them there and there was no way he could get up.”
Little Man’s story is all too familiar to law enforcement agencies, and not just in the Dogpatch area.
“I think it’s just a big problem in this whole county,” said Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. “We know that our agency receives on average about 100 to 150 calls a year.”
The PCSD said people need to report these cases of neglect and abuse as soon as possible.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t call us,” Nanos said. “You should call us whether it’s open ground or not, so we can go there, maybe assess the situation and contain the problem.”
If you have a pet that you can no longer care for, there are many rescue centers like Equine Voices that will be happy to take them in.
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