A 3-month-old Husky puppy left inside a car in the sweltering Las Vegas heat last week is continuing to receive medical treatment from animal control, authorities said in a statement Thursday.
The dog was spotted by security inside a vehicle at the top of a parking garage “with tape around its mouth” at around 3 p.m. on July 20, according to the statement. The puppy was recovered through the car’s sunroof, police said. Temperatures reached 113 degrees that day in Las Vegas, according to Accuweather.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police arrested the vehicle’s owner for “willful, malicious torture of animal” – a felony, according to Nevada’s state code. The department released the arresting officer’s body-camera footage of the incident.
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The footage shows the officer approaching a gray SUV where an unidentified person, an apparent bystander, is giving water to the puppy.
“He was with a lot of saliva,” the person says, mimicking the dog’s breathing patterns for the officer. “Like he wasn’t able to breathe.”
The owner of the vehicle, later identified as 50-year-old Raul Carbajal, soon appears in the bodycam footage and is almost immediately placed under arrest.
“Do you realize how hot it is outside?” the officer asks Carbajal. “You had the vehicle off, windows up and you had tape around your dog’s mouth.”
The puppy was locked in the car for two hours while Carbajal was gambling, authorities found through their investigation, according to the statement
