Andrea Dominick

Name:
Dominick, Andrea

Date of Booking:
03/02/2024

Reason(s) For Booking:
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Officer’s Narrative:
[Please note: The following is a direct transcription from the official initial incident report. The Georgia Gazette does not fix any spelling or grammatical errors that may exist. Any changes or redactions made by our staff are placed inside brackets. Some errors may exist. All subjects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The topics discussed may be sensitive to some readers. Discretion is advised.]

On Saturday, March 2, 2024 I was dispatched to the Jones County Sheriff’s Office to speak to someone in reference to an Animal Complaint. When I arrived I made contact with [WITNESS #1], She then showed me a video on her cell phone of what appeared to be an animal in a trash fire. She advised me that she was instructed to go to that house and get a red dog collar ready for a dog to be put on it. [WITNESS #1] said that she located the collar and it was attached to a runner cable, when she pulled on the cable to get it away from the fire, she realized that there was a dog attached to the end of it. [WITNESS #1] stated that when the dog came out of the fire, it traumatized her and she had to let the COPS know about it.

After viewing the video, I left the Sheriff’s Office and asked dispatch to show me in rout to [400 BLOCK] Skinner Rd., and dispatch Animal Control to that location for an investigation.

I met Animal Control out there and we did find a dog to be in the fire. Miss. Andrea began telling me that the dog died a month ago and she buried it, but something dug it up and put the dog at the end of her driveway. She claimed that she took a red collar off of a runner and put it around the dog’s neck and drug the dog up to the fire that had already been burning for three days and put it in the fire.

However, the red collar was attached to the runner cable that was attached to the tree, and half of the collar was missing due to being burned off in the fire. Miss. Andrea stated that she would show me where she buried the dog and something dug it up. However, where she stated that dog was buried, the ground had no markers showing that it had ever been disturbed. The grass was green all throughout the spot, there was no signs of anything scratching the ground much less digging anything up.

Miss. Andrea stated that the ground is full or rocks and she could not dig it very deep. She did grab a shovel and began to show me and [WITNESS #2] the Animal Control where and how she dug. She was sliding the shovel across the top of the ground and was effortlessly able to move dirt even with rocks being in it. However, there were roots growing upward in the area and the roots were about 2 inches deep in the ground. There were leaves all over that same area and no signs of a disturbance in them either.

As [WITNESS #2] and I got to looking around we noticed a total of 4 dogs and 5 chickens outside that had no water, no food, and the dogs were walking and laying in their own piles of feces and urine. There were at least 5 dead chickens on the property that were left to rot. Miss. Andrea claims that they are not her chickens, but she also claimed that she only had 5 chickens to begin with, however, there was a chicken found in her chicken coop that was dead. That meant that she had 6 chickens not 5.

I then asked Miss. Andrea if she had any animals in the house, she stated that she only had a couple of dogs in the house. I asked if I could see them, Miss. Andrea agreed and as I made my way into the house, the over powering smell of ammonia took my breath away. I entered the house and immediately to the left was a dog kennel with a puppy Great Dane in it. This dog had no water, no food and was unable to lay down without laying in it feces and urine. Two other small dogs were running around inside, one was matted severely. The other was not well kept either.

There was not a place that I nor [WITNESS #2] could put our feet and not step in feces. There was no sign of food and water for the dogs inside the house. The puppy Great Dane’s kennel had 3 number 10 cans in it that took up about half of the kennel. The floor under the kennel was saturated with liquid feces and urine to the point that the floor appeared to be rotten. Miss. Andrea stated that her and her son took the carpet up and they were working on remodeling the house.

As we made our way through the house we were shown a tote with 4 baby ducks that again had no food or water. We were shown a tote with a fat tailed Gecko lizard, no food, no water, no heat lamp to help regulate its body temp in a cold environment.

I asked if there were any other animals in the camper that was located on the property. Miss. Andrea stated that there are 3 small dogs inside it. I went and checked on them and there was food in the floor for them but no sign of water for them, there was feces everywhere inside the camper. The camper was piled high with garbage, out of the two beds only one had a small place that was cleared out for her to sleep in. The ammonia smell was overwhelming in the camper as well.

As we gathered by the smoldering pit that was a fire at one point, we were looking at the dog and [WITNESS #2] moved another piece of trash and under it was a dead cat that was in a plastic bag that was half burnt. The cat had been dead for some time due to the maggots that were in it.

However, it was very clear that the dog that was in the fire had died where it was and a fire was built on top of it. The cable was still attached to the tree, and it was extremely difficult to remove the collar from the cable. Once the cable was removed from the collar, it was very easy to put the cable back on the collar and remove it again with no trouble at all. Miss. Andrea Dominick was placed under arrest for Cruelty to Animals. I placed her in hand cuffs, double locked to the rear and seated her in the back of another deputy’s patrol car. So that she could be taken to the Jones County Law Enforcement Center where she would be turned over to the jail staff. I stayed and help Animal Control get the 20 animals loaded up and safely taken to the Jones County animal shelter.

Charges will be taken for 20 counts of Animal Cruelty.

[End of Narrative]