UPDATE @ 9:05 p.m. (Sept. 27): No charges will be pursued against Lettia Watkins in the case of a pit bulldog found dead in the backyard of her home on Leland Avenue, officials with the city prosecutor's office said.
UPDATE @ 10 p.m. (Sept. 26):
There were no signs abuse after a dog was found deceased this morning by Dayton police.
The Montgomery County Animal Resource Center performed a necropsy (the animal version of an autopsy) and determined the dog died of natural causes, according to Mark Kumpf, the center’s director.
A Dayton Police Department report from this morning indicates the dog’s caretaker, Lettia Watkins, was issued a summons to appear in Dayton Municipal Court for an alleged violation of the city’s ordinance on confinement of dogs.
FIRST REPORT
Police called to a complaint about a bad odor this morning found a dead dog tied to a tight leash.
Police responded just before 4:30 a.m. to a home in the 600 block of Leland Avenue. Officers standing 45 feet away could smell the dead dog in the backyard.
The deceased gray pit bull had a blue collar attached to a red cable tightly tied between a fence and dead tree stump; the dog had only about 12 inches to move, according to a Dayton police report.
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"It was evident the dog had strangled itself trying to get free of the leash that was tightly around the dead tree stump," the report stated.
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The home’s resident, 50-year-old Lettia Watkins, told police the dog was her nephew’s, and that the dog was alive Sunday. Humidity and high temperatures likely sped up the decomposition process.
Watkins told police she had never owned nor cared for dogs before, and that she didn’t mean to cause harm, according to the police report.
