JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A dog that was rescued after an early morning house fire on the Riverside is still recovering from severe injuries.
Jacksonville police said a 46-year-old man set a vacant house on Magnolia Street on fire with himself, Minnie and another dog named Decoy inside. Minnie belonged to the man who has been accused of setting the house on fire.
After she was resuscitated by the fire department, Minnie is now fighting for her life at the Animal Care and Protection Services.
In a newly released video, Minnie appeared alert but showed signs of struggling to breathe.
A neighbor captured a video of a firefighter giving oxygen to the dog. While Minnie was receiving aid, witnesses told officers what they saw before the fire erupted.
Hours later, Tracy Russell found Minnie behind a barbed wire fence when she went to feed the neighborhood cats.
“The dog was not in good shape. It was breathing heavily. I could see burn marks on the outside of its mouth,” Russell said.
Russell said she called the police around 7:40 a.m. and “made it clear” that Minnie was injured. She said she was told to call animal control, but the office was closed at that hour.
However, News4JAX learned that the police could have called the on-call animal control officer.
Alexandria Clary agreed to take care of Minnie in her apartment until the office opened.
“She was not able to open her mouth so that told me she was not only dehydrated but probably could not eat. That was the biggest concern for me, having inhaled a lot of smoke and not being able to refill herself,” Clary said about Minnie’s condition.
Hours later, Clary dropped Minnie off at the animal control shelter after it opened.
But by this time, Minnie’s condition turned critical.
Clary believes Minnie lost critical time to receive proper veterinarian care from the time after firefighters resuscitated her.
“We thought the dog had gone with the firefighters after resuscitation,” Clary said.
“That dog obviously needed help then. You were helping it then. So now hours later, for that dog to still be having issues any human would potentially be on death’s door because of that, so why is a dog different,” Russell said.
A spokesperson for the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department said the responding fire crew did the best they could to revive Minnie and then released her to JSO and the owner after she began to walk.
The spokesperson also said firefighters don’t take injured dogs to the emergency veterinarian.
JSO released a statement that said, in part, “In speaking with the officers and supervisor on the scene, they were not advised by any one of the potential injuries to an animal. These types of scenes, typically overseen by JFRD, have JSO on the outskirts of the scene, assisting with scene closures and traffic direction and control.”
If Clary had taken the dog to a 24-hour animal emergency room, she would have had to pay for the treatments.