By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — An animal cruelty charge has been dropped on the prosecution’s request against a young woman accused of leaving a dog inside her house in Yale without adequate food and water when she and her boyfriend moved to Oilton.
District Judge Phillip Corley ordered the case against Jazmine Merie Taylor, 20, to be dismissed last week on her payment of $419 in court costs at the rate of $50 per month, court records show.
Jesse Wayne Dawson, 27, remains free on a personal recognizance bond pending an Aug. 12 court appearance on a misdemeanor charge of abandoning the dog without food and water, court records show.
Yale Police Officer Stephen Lombard said that on March 12, 2018, a man and his daughter told him that a dog in a house had not been fed or watered in three days, according to his affidavit.
They said that the dog’s owners were Taylor and Dawson, who had moved to Oilton, the affidavit alleged.
The woman said “the dog’s owners had moved around two weeks ago and left the dog in the house,” the affidavit alleged.
She said “she called and sent text messages to the dog owners and told them that she was moved out on Friday, March 9, 2018, and told them that they needed to come get the dog,” the affidavit alleged.
The defendants told the woman by text message “that they would come and get the dog on Monday, March 12, 2018,” the affidavit alleged.
The woman said “she fed and watered the dog on the 9th of March when she left the house,” but when she went back to check, “the dog was still in the home with no food or water on this date,” the affidavit alleged.
When the Yale officer went to the house in the 400 block of S. 8th Street, “The dog was locked up in two small rooms, one of which was a small wash room about 5′ by 10′, which had a window which was knocked out, which allowed the dog to go into a small bedroom with a mattress on the floor,” the affidavit alleged.
“Both the small bedroom and the laundry room had a large amount of dog feces and urine on the floor. When I walked into the bedroom, I saw what appeared to be a metal dog feeding bowl, which was empty. I also saw a plastic bucket, which had about one inch to one and one-half inch of water in the bottom.
“The dog appeared to be very hungry when I let her out and was trying to eat a cereal box, which was on the floor of the living room,” the Yale officer wrote in his affidavit.
After the Yale officer took the dog into custody, the man who reported the incident with his daughter said he would take the dog to his house and provide her feed and water until the officer could find a place for the dog, the affidavit alleged.
About 30 minutes later, the Yale officer spoke on the phone to Taylor, who said she thought that one of her relatives had gotten the dog, the affidavit said.
“I told her the dog had not been fed and watered in three days and was locked in two small rooms of the house and as a pet owner, she had the responsibility to make sure the dog was not in the home and had food and water,” the Yale officer wrote in his affidavit.
The Yale officer contacted the city pound to make sure that the dog was taken to a veterinarian, the affidavit said.
That night, when the Yale officer talked to Taylor and Dawson at the police station, “Both told me that they got the dog at a rescue in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and the dog was named Belle; she had a chip in her and she had all of her shots,” the affidavit alleged.
“Both Dawson and Taylor admit to moving to Oilton and taking some of their dogs with them, but leaving this one dog in the home when they moved out of the house in Yale,” the affidavit alleged.
Both said that they believed a man was going to pick up the dog and keep her; however, he said that he had told them he would love to have the dog, but did not have his truck to pick up the dog, the affidavit alleged.
“The Yale Police Department has been to the Dawson/Taylor home before on animal complaints,” first during the summer of 2017 when Police Chief Phillip Kelly went there on a report the dogs had no water in the heat, the affidavit alleged.
Then on Feb. 10, 2017, Deputy Police Chief Ken Moore was called about the dogs being outside without food or water when the temperature was 20 degrees with a wind chill of 11 degrees, the affidavit alleged.
“Moore wrote that he was told by the dog owners that the dogs had been outside for two days because they had used the bathroom in the house,” the affidavit alleged. “Moore wrote the dogs were taken in the house while he was at the home,” the affidavit said.
“While interviewing Dawson and Taylor, both voluntarily released the dog to me to get it care and re-homed,” the Yale officer wrote in his affidavit.
The dog was kept at the Yale City Pound from March 12, 2018, to March 16, 2018, when she was turned over to the Cimarron Valley Humane Society, the affidavit said.
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