COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — A woman who allegedly abandoned two dogs inside her home without food or water for a month is facing criminal charges.
Dominique A. Lewis, 30, is charged with two counts of cruelty to animals and two counts of failing to properly care for animals, all misdemeanors.
The charges stem from late August, when an anonymous caller contacted police to report dogs barking and howling continuously at a Coeur d’Alene home. The caller believed no one had been in the home for about a month.
When animal control officers responded to the home, they found a package on the porch that was delivered in mid July, according to court records. While officers knocked on the door, two dogs peered down at them from a second-floor window, one barking and the other silently leaning her head on the sill. Phone calls to Lewis and a relative went unanswered, officers said.
Thinking that the homeowner may have died inside the residence, police entered the home and found the interior “completely cluttered with feces, trash and insulation,” according to court records.
The dogs, a young Great Dane/boxer mix and a 10-year-old pit bull mix, were “extremely emaciated” and dehydrated, police said. One officer observed that the larger dog appeared to be sick, while another described her in a report as “emaciated to a point which I had not seen before.”
Empty dog food bags were found in the house, police said, as if “the food was thrown to the ground for the dogs to feed themselves.” Staff at Companions Animal Center later said the only source of water in the home was a leaking toilet.
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