Denton County pet owner loses rare appeal in puppy abuse case

Kellie Robinson was driving down New Hope Road when she saw the puppies and their taped snouts. She pulled over, and they ran toward her. She greeted the puppies and noticed Levi had blood on his leg, possibly from the escape. Their owner, Jonathan Fredi, told a Denton County sheriff’s deputy he’d been keeping them in a chicken coop “as he was training them to protect chickens,” the deputy wrote in the affidavit.

On that late April evening, Fredi had been driving around looking for them about an hour after Levi and Wrangler escaped. He’d been reading a bedtime story to his children when his wife realized they were gone. He flagged down the deputy who’d been searching for the dogs’ owner and asked if he’d seen them.

“When asked, Mr. Fredi stated neither puppy had tape being over the puppy’s snouts,” according to the affidavit. “Mr. Fredi would break eye contact when questioned about the tape being over the puppy’s snouts.”

Robinson took photos of the puppies before she removed the black electrical tape and took them to a local rescue organization. Fredi hasn’t been charged with a crime but did have to appear in the Justice of Peace Precinct 1 court for an animal seizure case.

In early May, the court ruled that the dogs should be removed from their owner and ordered Fredi to pay $560, according to the May 1 court record.

Fredi appealed the decision. His appeal hearing occurred Thursday afternoon at the Denton County Courts Building. Judge Robert Ramirez heard the appeal.

“I can say that I never, ever put tape on their mouths,” Fredi reiterated on the stand Thursday to the judge and the small crowd of animal rights activists who filled one side of the courtroom.

Previously, the 2nd District Court of Appeals of Texas has ruled that taping a dog’s mouth shut is “unjustifiable and torture” in Swift v. State, Denton County District Attorney Paul Johnson and Assistant District Attorney Lara Tomlin wrote in the state’s trial brief for Thursday.

Swift v. State unfolded in a courtroom not far from where Fredi’s Denton attorney, Thomas M. McMurray, argued the appeal. In that 2004 case, Dennis Swift had wrapped duct tape around his brother’s 1-year-old black Labrador’s snout and head to “teach him a lesson” for barking, according to the April 20, 2006, memorandum opinion for Swift’s appeal.

The Labrador, known as Bull, escaped and found refuge with neighbors who sprayed him down and tried to remove the duct tape. He’d been foaming at the mouth and was suffering from a heat stroke because he couldn’t cool down his body temperature due to his inability to pant, which allows dogs to control their body temperatures, Tomlin argued at Fredi’s appeal hearing Thursday.

Bull died. Swift received a two-year sentence in jail and a $5,000 fine for animal cruelty. He lost his appeal.

Representatives from the Linda McNatt Animal Care & Adoption Center in Denton and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas said that the number of animal abuse cases in North Texas has remained fairly consistent since the pandemic, though SPCA of Texas has noticed a slight influx of eviction-related abandonment and neglect cases due to financial struggles.

“While we are able to keep many animals safely in their homes through preventative community work, we still encounter animal cruelty each and every day,” Courtney Burns, chief investigator for the SPCA animal cruelty investigations unit, wrote in a Thursday morning email to the Record-Chronicle.

“Many of these cases must result in the urgent intake of animals into our Animal Care Centers to get them to safety. Currently, animal shelters across the state of Texas are facing issues with kennel space, and unfortunately we are experiencing the same challenges with capacity.”

Denton’s animal shelter is currently requesting $13 million to expand its facility as part of the city’s proposed bond package for this November.

At the appeal hearing Thursday, McMurray pointed out that no one had determined if his client, who said he didn’t do it, had indeed placed the black electrical tape around Levi’s and Wrangler’s snouts. But people on social media had already vilified Fredi, McMurray said.

He compared what was happening to his client on social media to what happened in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

Judge Ramirez reminded the courtroom Thursday that he wasn’t there to determine intent but was hearing an appeal about whether the puppies should be removed permanently from Fredi’s care.

Fredi took the stand in his own defense, which seemed to surprise the judge, and reiterated that he didn’t do it. He claimed he didn’t know how it happened in the 11 minutes between the puppies’ 7 p.m. escape and the time they were found by Robinson. He claimed he had left the puppies in a chicken coop to get them used to his chickens because they had killed several chicks.

Tomlin, who argued the case for the District Attorney’s Office, pointed out that Levi had injuries consistent with a rooster or a hen pecking at him. Chickens have been known to defeather and kill the weak and the defenseless among their own kind.

Fredi said he had gotten the puppies and was training them to protect his livestock from bobcats and coyotes that prowled the area.

And while Fredi was adamant that he did not tape the puppies’ snouts, he did have his attorney introduce as evidence an article from the internet that he thought discussed using tape when a muzzle wasn’t available to train dogs.

In a Thursday morning email to Judge Ramirez, Lynnette Taff, president of the Bluebonnet Animal Rescue Network, pointed out that she has trained many dogs as a rancher to live with livestock and rescued more than 500 dogs of various livestock guardian breeds.

“We have tested them with our livestock and never once have we taped a dog’s mouth shut or even CONSIDERED doing so,” Taff wrote. “We haven’t even used a muzzle because it’s not necessary. Young puppies (such as those in the photos of Mr. Fredi’s pups that have been posted on social media) are typically VERY trainable, and there are numerous places online where anyone who is inexperienced can find good advice and training suggestions.

“Taping up a dog’s mouth is NOT good advice and anyone who would suggest it IS not a qualified trainer and frankly, is not a decent human being. Taping up a dog’s mouth is cruel and inhumane, not to mention inherently dangerous.”

Taff wasn’t the only person to email the judge directly. More than 100 people also sent emails, according to court records. Directly contacting a judge about a case pending in their court is usually frowned upon since judges are not allowed to consider “ex parte communications” when they decide a case unless expressly allowed by law.

On cross-examination, Tomlin pointed out that the internet article wasn’t talking about training dogs but discussing when a dog was injured and in need of care but prone to bite due to its injury.

It may have been discussing a temporary muzzle made out of tape but not actually wrapping it around their snouts, as Petplace.com does in the article “How to Make and Place a Muzzle on a Dog.”

The American Kennel Club recommends using a muzzle only during an emergency, such as an injury, and not for training purposes.

“A muzzle is only meant to be used for short periods of time, and only when your dog is supervised,” according to a 2021 report by the AKC.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Ramirez denied two of the state’s arguments — that the electrical tape had confined the puppies and that they had been tortured — and seemed as if he might rule in favor of the defendant in the civil case, which they called “quasi-criminal” since it was an animal seizure hearing.

Failing to provide food, care or shelter is a felony crime under Texas law and punishable by two years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

As Tomlin mentioned, the law regarding animal seizures was changed in 2009 and requires appeals to be heard at the county level instead of at the appellate one.

McMurray called it a “weird law” and only a few appeals have been heard since most of the time people don’t appeal when they lose in justice of the peace court.

But then Judge Ramirez agreed that the electrical tape did deny Levi and Wrangler access to proper food, water or care. It didn’t allow the puppies to pant, which regulates their body temperature, or protect themselves from bobcats and coyotes.

He ruled that they would remain in the custody of Denton’s McNatt Animal Care & Adoption Center until they found a new home.

In a Friday morning interview with the Record-Chronicle, McMurray stressed that the hearing Thursday was a civil matter and not a criminal one.

“I think the judge made a mistake,” McMurray said. “In a normal trial, you can file with the Court of Appeal. This law doesn’t have that. You can like it or not. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. It’s a taking. It’s forfeiture.”

Tomlin told the Record-Chronicle there is a pending criminal case against Fredi but declined to discuss specifics.

Levi and Wrangler are now staying with a temporary foster; they appear to be in good health. Turner and other animal advocates are thankful for the judge’s ruling.