Two loose German Shepherds fatally mauled a defenseless six-month-old Micro Bully inside a Ponte Vedra Beach home on Wednesday after entering through a backyard gate, the dog’s devastated owner told The Citizen.
“He was such an innocent little puppy,” the pooch’s heartbroken owner Megan Caico told The Citizen through tears. “He didn’t stand a chance.”
Caico said she returned to her Dolphin Cove house at roughly 11 a.m. and was startled to find two large dogs in her living room.
“I was so confused,” she said. “For a minute I thought I was in the wrong home or something. I didn’t know what was going on.”
After frantically shooing the intruders out, Caico saw her puppy Frank lying motionless on the floor in a hallway.
“At first I thought he was playing dead, or was resting,” she said. “But when I went to pick him up, he was covered in blood and totally stiff.”
Beside herself, Caico searched her home and saw blood spattered near Frank’s crate.
“The bedroom and bathroom looked like a crime scene,” she said through tears. “I think Frank was scared and tried to run back to his crate and he was killed there.”
According to an affidavit, Caico told police that “the male dog had my dog’s fur all over his muzzle.”
Ring video shows her sobbing outside the home on a frantic 911 call — just as the German Shepherds reappear again and approach the house.
“Get the f— away from me!” she can be heard screaming as she shuts the door.
A neighbor later corralled the animals and asked in a Nextdoor post if anyone was missing two German Shepherds.
A man responded, telling the woman that they belonged to his girlfriend who lived nearby.
He speculated that a landscaper left their back gate open.
The man was initially allowed to retrieve the animals, but they were later taken into custody by animal control pending an investigation.
Shellshocked by the incident, Caico began reviewing her Ring footage to piece together what happened.
Footage shows the German Shepherds scampering into her backyard at 9:35 a.m. — meaning they were in her home for roughly 90 minutes before her return.
She noted that, shortly before the dogs entered, someone rang her neighbors front door. They told her the person was gone by the time they opened it.
Caico said the dogs entered through a gate with an exterior latch, and said someone must have let them in.
“It’s a really tricky latch, and it was closed when I got home,” she said. “I think someone let them into my backyard. I believe in coincidences, but I don’t believe in the doorbell getting rung next door and then these dogs getting into my locked fence. It makes no sense.”
Caico said animal control staffers suggested that she may have left it ajar, or that the dogs jostled the latch open.
“It was closed when I got home,” Caico said. “And I don’t think the dogs opened a latch.”
While shattered by Frank’s loss, she was thankful that her other dog who was inside the home at the time, was not attacked.
Frank, she said tearfully, had instantly bonded with her two young children.
“They’re just devastated,” she said. “My son was a big part of the process when we picked up Frank and he really pushed for it. My daughter was really really close to him. It’s just really sad.”
The owner of the German Shepherds sent her an apologetic Facebook message, but Caico said she is still too traumatized to consider it.
“It’s just so sad to think about something that is so innocent suffering in such a cruel fashion,” she said. “We are going to miss him. Nothing is going to bring my dog back. But there has to be consequences for this negligence.”
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