Deer Park woman gets 500 days in jail for dog hoarding

McKay Allen

A Deer Park woman convicted and sentenced to 500 days in jail for animal cruelty for hoarding dogs still has dozens of dogs at her house and has until Friday to get rid of them all.

In a case that dates back to 2008 Stevens County authorities charged Pam Deskins with four misdemeanors and said her dogs were killing each other and roaming in vicious packs. Now she's in jail, but the dogs are still there.

“They were killing each other, packing up and killing each other and eating them,” Gail Mackie with Spokanimal said. “They were living in dugouts, dug outs in the yard, they were wild, they were injuring each other.”

In 2008 Deskins was charged with animal cruelty and unsafe confinement and Spokanimal took 39 of her dogs.

“Some of the dogs ate their babies, some were badly deformed and had to be euthanized,” Mackie said.

Last Friday Deskins was sentenced to over 500 days in jail and has to pay fines and restitution in excess of $30,000. Once she gets out of jail she can’t have another pet for two years after she gets out of jail.

However when Spokanimal went to the house earlier this week, after the sentence, there were still over 50 dogs there.“They just started breeding again, totally repopulated again,” Mackie said.

Stevens County's given Mike Benson, the man who lives with Desksins, until this Friday to find new homes for the dogs, or he could get arrested too..." More & video