Dayton Police Department officers found evidence of possible dog fighting after a loose dog charged a man and his puppy, prompting the man to kill the loose dog.
Two DPD officers arrived in the 100 block of Malden Street in Dayton after a man reported a dangerous animal in the area, according to a police incident report. At about 8:30 p.m., the caller was on his front porch and the loose dog charged the caller and his puppy and he stabbed the dog in the throat with a rod, he told officers. The dog retreated to its yard.
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The officers found the dog — which appeared to be a brown bull mastiff — dead in the grass at the north side of the property. The dog had been loose all day, according to the report.
Around noon, the dog had charged three women walking down the street, and the man said he chased it away from them with a gardening tool.
Caged on the property were five or six dogs of varying sizes, according to the report, and another dog was barking inside the residence. The dogs appeared to be the same breed as the dead dog. One of the doors to the cages was open, and there was a large hole in the fence. The caller told officers that no one appeared to live at the residence, but he had seen vehicles coming and going.
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Officers could not tell whether the animals had food or water. They also saw a post in the middle of the yard and a chain hanging from a tree, which “can often be indicators of dog fighting,” according to the report.
An officer knocked on the door of the residence and said it smelled like something was dead inside. He could not see inside the residence well enough to gauge the welfare of the dog inside.
The officers photographed the dead dog and the living conditions of the other dogs and attempted to close the hole in the fence.
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The Montgomery County Animal Resource Center was unable to respond to the incident on Monday but was to send someone to the address Tuesday, according to the report.
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