An Arlington dog trainer pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of animal cruelty in connection with the death of multiple dogs that were in his care.
Last September, Alan Brown was indicted on three counts each of animal cruelty and tampering with evidence after three dogs he was boarding died.
The dogs, two German Shepherds and a Bernadoodle, were listed in court documents as possibly being poisoned, exposed to unsafe temperatures, having inadequate food or water, or being overworked, per CBS News Texas.
Brown originally faced jail time and a felony charge. However, as part of his recent plea deal, he was sentenced to two years of deferred adjudication, a unique kind of probation that allows defendants to keep their charges off their criminal record.
In January, a judge denied Brown’s request to start holding dog-training classes again. His original bond conditions stated that he was not allowed to be around any animals other than his own.
In Tuesday’s plea deal, a judge declared that Brown will still not be able to board dogs but may be able to train them.
“You will never know the pain and the suffering that you have caused me and my family and my children,” Trent Robinson, the owner of one of the dogs who died in Brown’s care, said in court Tuesday, per CBS. “These were not dogs to us. These were our children, and they meant the world to us.”
Four months after Brown’s indictment last September, his wife, Arlington Police Department Officer Stacie Brown, was arrested for obstruction after being accused of filing a false police report against the owner of one of the dogs that died.
In April, another North Texas dog trainer was arrested on animal cruelty charges, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Craig Hanna of Hunt County was arrested after one of his clients went to pick up his two dogs after a two-week board-and-train program with Hanna, only to find them covered in urine and barely able to move. The dogs were treated for severe dehydration and malnutrition, and one had lost 13 pounds.
As of September 2, Dallas has clocked 103 animal cruelty cases so far this year, per the City’s crime analytics dashboard. The number has shot up considerably from last year when Dallas saw 94 cases of animal cruelty throughout all of 2023.
The Dallas Police Department was only budgeted $654 million this fiscal year, much less than police departments in other high-crime cities, such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.