A deputy with the State Fire Marshal's Office was arrested on animal cruelty and other counts after detectives determined his K9 partner slowly starved to death over several months while being deprived of routine medical treatment — a case of neglect authorities and veterinarians described as "extremely disturbing and horrific."
Robert Fain, 28, was booked on counts related to payroll fraud resulting in part from his apparent efforts to hide the dog's condition from his supervisors. Officials said he'll be transferred to Bossier Parish jail and booked there on animal cruelty. Fain resigned from the agency when he was arrested.
The dog, "Maily", died in October and officials with the agency said then that she "succumbed to a lengthy illness which she fought to overcome on a daily basis." But a necropsy at the LSU veterinary school later found her death was the result of "extreme emaciation and dehydration." The veterinarian who conducted the exam said in her report that, unless the death was intentional, the dog should have been euthanized because her condition was so extreme.
Maily had lost over half her body weight while under Fain's care, dropping from 75 pounds to 31 pounds in about two years, according to the man's arrest report.
Fain was a corporal with the State Fire Marshal's Office working in the Shreveport area.
"As a dog owner and former K9 handler myself, these findings make me sick," State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said
in a Facebook post Friday morning. "We consider all of our K9 officers part of our law enforcement family and treatment of these animals as anything less is unacceptable. Outright neglect and abuse like this will not be tolerated or excused."
Browning said Fain's actions don't reflect the agency's treatment of its dogs, which often help arson investigators determine whether accelerants were used to start a fire.
The State Fire Marshal's Office said it's taking steps to review the K9 program in response to Maily's death. It's not clear how the dog's condition deteriorated dramatically over a long period of time without any of Fain's colleagues or supervisors becoming aware of the problem.
Maily was assigned to Fain in July 2017, at which point he also received six weeks of K9 training in Alabama, including instruction on how to properly feed and care for his new dog, investigators wrote in his arrest report.
The veterinarian who examined Maily's body after her death said it was "the worst case she had seen in her 30 years of practicing medicine in which the K9 wasn't euthanized prior to the animal's death," according to the report.
Investigators also found that Fain had last used his state-issued credit card to purchase 15 pounds of dog food three months before Maily's death, an amount that was nowhere near enough to have sustained her over that time period.
