Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced this week that the former owner of a dog that the Highway Patrol saved as Hurricane Milton hit land has been caught and will be charged with cruelty to animals.
“We had somebody decide, as Hurricane Milton approached, that it would somehow be a good thing to take his dog and chain it to a post on the interstate,” DeSantis said during a press conference at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
Orlando Morales, an officer with the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), filmed the dog standing in a pool of water because it couldn’t get away from the fence as Milton made his way to land.
DeSantis said the dog’s new name was “Trooper” and that he was now in Tallahassee, where he will be adopted. The governor said that what the past owners did was “completely unacceptable.”
He said that the dog’s former owner had been found and that State Attorney Suzy Lopez would be in charge of the case.
According to a news statement from Lopez’s office, the dog’s owner is Giovanny Garcia. Garcia was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after admitting that he left his dog on Interstate 75 while he was leaving Milton. Garcia told the police that he left his dog, which used to be called Jumbo, because he couldn’t find anyone to take it.
