The dog’s day in court proves elusive

Buster snuggles up with Cynthia Dares, director of the Sunflower Sanctuary Animal Rescue, where he now lives. “Everyone was telling me how mean he was, trying to bite everyone,” Dares says. “It’s a love now.”

A rear view of Buster after his rescue in June shows some of his matted hair, the yellow discoloration from urine.

One of Buster’s tangled legs.

The little dog, she said, was so tangled he could barely walk, the hardened grunts of burr-spotted hair and feces pushing against the overgrown claws of his paws.

He was about 11 years old, tiny, starving, eyes narrowed, oozing and blind. He had a torn ACL, a collapsed trachea, and once he was rescued he ate so much food that an x-ray of his abdomen showed his stomach was dangerously stretched beyond its limits.

He was listed as a shih-poo, though with all those mats it was hard to tell what he was.

What Cynthia Dares could tell was that this little boy needed help.

“It broke my heart to see what a bad state he was in,” said Dares, who runs the Sunflower Sanctuary Animal Rescue in the Eastern Mountains, when the little dog first arrived last June. .

She named him Buster.

But her sadness turned to anger when she heard her story. She became even angrier when she learned this week that no one would be held responsible for the state Buster was in when she took him in. This, after a Valencia County animal control officer described the former owner in a criminal complaint as leaving the dog “neglected, tangled, injured and heavily abused.”

Yvette Tapia of Los Lunas has been charged with two misdemeanors, with both charges dismissed. Twice.

Tapia, 56, declined to comment, then said the ‘sanctuary lady’ was lying and that her dog and a cat had been stolen. She referred further comments to her attorney, Marlo Aragon, who said there would be no further comment “other than to say the cases have been dismissed and my client maintains her innocence.”

If Tapia’s name is familiar to you, you might remember that in 2008, the media reported that she was fired from her job as an assistant in the Albuquerque City Attorney’s Office after the airing of a video showing her choking, kicking and throwing a puppy named Buddy.

A Journal article also said she was fired after the city conducted its own investigation into the allegations and feared she had lied.

Back to Buster. Tapia arrived home on June 15 and found her dog, whom she named Zack, and a cat named Harry Potter, missing. Tapia told Valencia County sheriff‘s deputies the next day that she believed her son and daughter-in-law stole the animals.

The daughter-in-law confessed to a deputy that she took the animals because, she said, Tapia abused them. According to a report from the Valencia County Sheriff’s Department, the daughter-in-law claimed that Tapia locked the cat in a small cage and kept the dog in a bathroom filled with dog urine and feces. The daughter-in-law also accused Tapia of hitting and kicking the dog when he barked, the report said.

The report, dated June 16, also says the daughter-in-law gave the cat to a cat shelter, but could not remember its name.

Zack, she said, was given to a friend.

On June 17, Dares said she received a call from a sobbing young woman who told her she had a dog in poor condition and needed veterinary care she couldn’t afford.

That dog was Zack.

Dares said she immediately arranged for a friend to pick up the dog from the Los Lunas area that day and take him to his vet at East Mountain Veterinary Service in Edgewood.

Clinic records show the dog received emergency care that day and remained in their care until June 19, when Dares picked up the frail, tangled little dog.

Buster began his makeover, hair cut, nails trimmed. He suffered repeated hospitalizations for stomach problems. Although records from a microchip company indicate her damaged eyes were the result of cataracts, veterinary records show the injury to one eye was so severe that it was removed on June 29.

Dares said it’s also likely the other eye will need to be removed.

Dares, meanwhile, began to piece Buster’s story together with the help of the stepdaughter, who called her.

On June 24, the two women publicly posted Buster’s story on Facebook and vowed to press charges of animal abuse against Tapia.

But it wasn’t that easy.

Valencia County Sheriff’s Department records show the stepdaughter had sought to have Tapia prosecuted for animal cruelty on June 16, but was told to contact county animal control.

Dares said she repeatedly contacted Valencia County Animal Control, even calling a local television station, which aired Buster’s story on July 7 and 8, in hopes of getting the public pressure to make it happen.

Finally, on July 16, a Valencia County animal control officer agreed to meet her halfway between Tijeras and Los Lunas so he could see Buster for himself and she could provide him with records. , photos and a video as proof.

Charges were brought against Tapia on August 25 – these were misdemeanor charges for animal cruelty and failing to be vaccinated against rabies.

In a September 20 letter to Belen Magistrates Court Judge John Chavez, who was assigned to the case, Tapia blamed the allegations on a family feud with his son and daughter-in-law.

When Tapia’s court date arrived on November 16, the officer was absent. Animal Control Director Jess Weston said the officer abruptly resigned before the trial.

Judge Chavez dismissed the charges “with prejudice,” meaning the case was over and the charges could not be refiled.

Even so, Weston said he ordered another officer to refile the case in December. Tapia’s attorney argued that the filed case violated criminal procedure and constituted double jeopardy, and the judge agreed.

Again, the charges were dismissed.

Dares found out this week.

“It’s so frustrating to fight so hard day in and day out, for it to end like this,” Dares said.

It’s a bitter end to a case that arguably should have at least given Buster his day in court. But there is some consolation in knowing that for him a new life has begun, filled with love, care and safety in his forever sanctuary home in the Eastern Mountains.

Anyone can tell.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Contact Joline at 730-2793, [email protected].