The owner of a Tulsa dog grooming business is responding after one of his employees was arrested for animal cruelty.
That employee is accused of beating and strangling a dog that died.
The owner of Doggy Doodles Grooming said even though he was nearby, he didn’t see what was happening and didn’t know – until he saw a video of a groomer beating a dog to death.
“I don’t know how to fix it, I can just change the policy and start over,” Becky Rutherford said.
Rutherford, who cried as she described a video of the beating, said she didn’t know what happened until she watched it.
The groomer, 41-year-old Diego Angel, was arrested and charged with felony Cruelty to Animals. He is out on bond out of jail. The dog, a 4-year-old poodle named “Atlas,” died about 10 minutes after the beating.
“He died, I tried to save him, I tried everything I knew how to do,” Rutherford said.
The staff tried to revive Atlas, but it was too late.
The video shows Angel beating the dog for a span of ten minutes while Atlas gets agitated while cleaning up. Some of the blows occur when the owner turns away or before he returns, and the other cleaners in the room do not intervene.
“He was upset and he felt like he was doing it on purpose, but I didn’t see that side,” Rutherford explained.
The business remains open to customers, but there has been a backlash online and in person. During an interview Thursday, a former customer stopped by to criticize Rutherford for not stopping the beating.
At first, Rutherford defended the organizer.
“I trusted that he was telling me the truth,” says Rutherford.
But after seeing the tape, he regretted trusting his word.
“So what he did for his anger to develop to hit him like he did, I have no idea,” he said.
Animal Welfare officials have a full video showing everything that happened.
Rutherford said his job now is to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
