CCSO implements new tools to help crack down on animal cruelty

Warning: Readers may find the images in this article disturbing.

Our deputies swear an oath to serve and protect everyone in our county, even those with four legs.

Now, Collier County Sheriff’s Office is going a step further, rolling out new technology to put a stop to animal cruelty.

A brown and white male quarter horse came to Southwest Florida Horse Rescue wondering, malnourished, in poor condition and extremely underweight.

He came in weighing in the mid-seven hundreds, and four months later, he gained 200 to 250 pounds.

This is one of Lieutenant Chad Parker’s favorite success stories.

“It was really 50-50 of whether or not this horse was going to survive,” Parker said.

And now he is thriving.

“The owners were arrested for animal neglect and abuse of that horse, and the horse today is doing very well,” Parker said.

CCSO has joined forces with the Fifth Judicial Circuit Animal Cruelty Task Force to make more success stories like these.

“We felt the need to establish a unit specifically to address those types of crimes, and the thing is, it requires training, so we have a dedicated team of detectives, which is supervised by a sergeant that goes to those types of training to become more apt to investigating animal cruelty,” Parker said.

Parker told us cameras and DNA testing help out their investigations immensely, and their partnership allows them to go even further.

“The hardest part is seeing any animal being abused or neglected and then being constrained within the confines of the law. Sometimes, what looks like it might be a crime is not, and we have to abide by the law,” Parker said.

Matt Venaleck, vice president of the rescue, appreciates the county’s help.

“Report, report, report, what we tell many people is that. I mean, we don’t carry a badge. We can’t go around town and tell people, ‘Hey, you’re doing wrong by horses.’ The authority has that responsibility,” he said.

You might remember him as Marconas, but Titan is his new name. It means “of great strength,” a testimony to his recovery.