Police charge pet grooming business employee with animal cruelty

Police charged the employee of an El Paso pet grooming business accused of slapping a dog and injuring the animal’s right eye.

Lucia Janeth Gonzalez Sifuentes is charged with “Cruelty to Non-Livestock Animals: Torture,” according to a criminal complaint affidavit obtained by ABC-7.

Police said the owner of a 13-year-old female schnauzer named Zia took her dog to get groomed at the pet grooming business. ABC-7 is not identifying the business because it is not under investigation.

While grooming the dog’s facial hair, Gonzalez noticed the dog began to bleed from its nose, the court document states. Gonzalez took the dog to another room, where she sprayed its face with water in an effort to clean its nose.

The criminal complaint states the dog began to move around and Gonzalez “slapped the dog directly on its right eye using her hand” resulting in the dog’s eye “immediately turning red.”

Zia’s owner took the dog to a veterinarian and was told her pet “sustained severe scleral hemorrhage to the right eye, causing the eye to swell and turn red.”

The court document states the veterinarian told Zia’s owner the eye lesion was consistent with a physical injury and prescribed pain medication and anti-inflammatory eye drops.

When detectives interviewed Gonzalez, she allegedly admitted to hitting Zia “as a reaction to being bit by the dog,” the criminal complaint states.

The document states Gonzalez allegedly failed to report the dog bite to her supervisor and only brought it up when she spoke with the police detective.