TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee couple was arrested on animal cruelty charges after authorities found their malnourished dog with a cable embedded into a wound on its neck.
David Leo Guidi, 33, and Tina Michelle Hines, 37, were booked into the Leon County Detention Center on Wednesday on the felony charges. Guidi remained in jail Thursday on $7,500 bond while Hines was released without having to post bond.
On Jan. 3, 2018, an animal control officer visited the couple's apartment on Talco Hills Drive and saw a pitbull tethered in the backyard and without shelter. Snow had fallen in Tallahassee that morning for the first time in decades.
The "extremely thin" dog was sitting on a Styrofoam block and a cable wrapped around its neck was attached to a tree, according to a probable cause complaint. If the dog got off the block, the officer wrote, the dog would hang itself.
No food, water or shelter was readily available for the dog.
Hines told the officer she was unaware of the dog's injury and believed that Guidi had fed the dog the previous night. Guidi was not home for the initial investigation.
Hines surrendered the dog to the officer so it could get medical attention.
A Tallahassee Police Department officer asked Hines if the dog had been left outside the previous night. Hines said she had brought the dog inside. Her statement to the TPD officer contradicted her previous statement to the animal control officer.
The ingrown tether was removed from the dog's neck by a veterinarian at the City of Tallahassee Animal Shelter. The tether was 24 centimeters, and the dog's neck was 35 centimeters.
The wound caused a "foul odor and purulent discharge," the vet wrote, and the emaciated and dehydrated dog had fleas and internal hookworms.
The vet said it would have taken a significant amount of time for the tether to cause the injury.
On Jan. 5, 2018, Guidi told an investigator the dog was normally an outside dog but he had brought her in Tuesday night because of the cold. He said the dog was "perfectly fine" with no cuts or injuries when he put her out that morning.
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