Woman's Service Dog Left Blind After Alleged Acid Attack
A Texas woman is seeking justice for her service dog after he was brutally attacked last month.
Mandy Garner's service dog, a male shih tzu named Gizmo, was critically injured on March 20 when someone apparently threw boric acid on him. Now blind and disfigured, Gizmo will need surgery to remove both of his eyes, not to mention lifelong care.
In an interview with ABC 13, Garner reflected on the sad irony of their role reversal.
"Now, I will be his service mama," she said.
Several weeks ago, Garner, whose Facebook profile identifies her as a secretary and agent at All Bail Bonds, was in the act of letting Gizmo back into her house in Baytown, TX when she noticed that something was seriously wrong with her pet. Gizmo was "shaking," she wrote in an emotional post, and covered in burns so severe that the family vet said that it "looks like someone has caught him on fire." In addition, he had sustained internal bruising and oral injuries.
The source of the burns, according to Garner, was boric acid, which she characterized as a "toxic industrial cleaner" of the sort that her neighbors, who own a carpet-cleaning business, keep around the house.
"[The vet] got with a pest control officer. They said it was a large amount of chemical," Garner said. "He said they intentionally did it."
But who is "they"? While Garner did not name any names, she has a suspect—or several—in mind. The day after the attack, she wrote, she alleges saw her neighbors' two daughters watching her as she was heading to the store to buy Neosporin for Gizmo's wounds. When she stopped to ask them if they knew anything about the attack, they "walked away laughing," she wrote.
"Gizmo is a very sweet dog and loves children so the kids possibly called him over there and he rolled over on his belly and they poured borax [sic] acid on him," she hypothesized.
When Garner attempted to file animal cruelty charges with the Baytown police department, she was told that she was not eligible to do so because she did not live within the Baytown city limits and to instead contact the Harris County sheriff's office. In turn, the sheriff's office told her that it did not conduct animal cruelty investigations.
Incensed by the bureaucratic roadblocks, Garner took to Facebook to share her story and solicit donations to Gizmo's medical fund. But there's no escaping the fact that his "life will not be the same," she wrote, adding that "he will not be able to play with his toys or even see again and he loves to do that."
