Animal control looking for woman who left dog outside Casa Grande shelter

CASA GRANDE, AZ (AZFamily) — Pinal County Animal Care and Control is asking for the public’s help identifying a woman who reportedly abandoned a dog outside its shelter on Monday morning.

“We hate to have to do this, but we would like to see people be held accountable for their cruelness towards animals as much as all of you,” the agency wrote in a Facebook post early Monday afternoon.

According to the social media post, the woman left the dog in the parking lot after being told the facility in Casa Grande doesn’t open until 10 a.m. and that appointments were required to surrender pets. It continued that the dog chased after the woman’s car as she drove away and was almost hit running into traffic.

In an update posted shortly before 5 p.m., the shelter said the dog had been caught.

Pinal County Animal Care and Control is trying to identify the woman who abandoned a dog... — Pinal County Animal Care and Control is trying to identify the woman who abandoned a dog outside it’s Casa Grande shelter on Monday morning.(Pinal County Animal Care and Control)

“He is understandably very scared, but safe!” the post read.

The dog was abandoned in the parking lot of the animal shelter on 11 Mile Corner near Earley Road by an “older woman from Florence who drives a black sedan.”

“This pup is safe and will be available for adoption after he has had a few days to decompress and we can get to know him further,” Pinal County Animal Care and Control posted early Tuesday afternoon. “Right now he is very shut down and terrified.”

The agency points out that abandoning animals is a violation of Arizona law (ARS 13-2910 A1).

“It’s emotionally hard on the dog. You can sometimes see when dogs shut down in the shelter, they get a little depressed, they are confused,” said Kim Powell, with Maricopa County Animal Care and Control, not affiliated with this case. “It does happen more often than you would think. We come into work and there is a dog tied up to a pole or a bench or something, and not realizing there is a process.”

Miles away in a different county, she says animal surrenders are common. However, Powell says, there is an appropriate and safe way to do it.

“Sometimes someone says, ‘Oh my dog chewed up my curtains, and I don’t want to keep him anymore,’ and it’s an in the moment kind of thing,” Powell said.

She says they also have diversion teams trained to help people keep their pets.

“Sometimes it’s maybe an issue that we can help them with or fix,” she said.

Powell says there are resources if you are considering surrendering your pet. For example, there are financial assistance programs and low-cost behavior training if that would make the decision to keep your pet easier.

Anyone with information is asked to call the shelter at 520-509-3555.

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