Santa Rosa man ordered to stand trial on charge of torturing dog

A three-legged dog named Daphne bounded into a Santa Rosa courtroom Tuesday, right past a former owner prosecutors say abandoned her last fall with a broken leg, causing her to suffer more injuries and forcing doctors to amputate.

The playful Lab mix didn’t appear to recognize Ronald McKnight, 37, a Coast Guard petty officer dressed in a blue uniform, charged with felony animal abuse. Daphne wriggled at the end of a leash for a moment while both sides identified her, then was led out to wait in the hallway.

“She doesn’t seem to notice she only has three legs,” Dustin Root, a Sonoma County animal control officer, said as he held her outside court.

By all indications, the dog was in better spirits than she was in October, when she was discovered at the bottom of a ravine on Beltane Ranch near Glen Ellen.

One of her hind legs was wrapped in a soiled, foul-smelling bandage and she was unable to walk, testified another animal control officer, Mariel Vega. Prosecutor Bill Brockley said she had been abandoned 10 days earlier, was badly dehydrated and would have died soon if she hadn’t been found.

A veterinarian later determined Daphne suffered two additional leg fractures since she had been treated for a broken leg a month earlier. Dan Famini, a veterinarian with county animal control, testified they came from some sort of high impact and could not have happened by walking or running. He said he knew the leg would have to come off.

“It was pretty clear that leg was not going to be salvageable,” Famini said in court.

Animal officials were unsure who owned Daphne until a Santa Rosa Junior College veterinary student recognized the dog’s injury when it was presented in a class discussion. Authorities confronted McKnight, who was in the process of adopting another dog. He admitted driving Daphne far away, putting her out of the car and leaving her behind, Root testified.

At the time, Daphne was recovering from surgery to repair a broken hind leg, witnesses said.

McKnight told a neighbor Daphne fell at his Rincon Valley apartment complex. The neighbor, Jana Zimmerman, testified she paid nearly $3,000 to have the dog treated because McKnight said he could not afford it.

When Zimmerman stopped by McKnight’s apartment to check on the dog, she was shocked to learn McKnight had given the dog away to an unnamed clinic, she said.

He would not tell her where, she said.

Prosecutors believe he took the dog out into the Sonoma Valley and dropped her off. He admitted abandoning her but he told animal control officers he left the dog near Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Root testified.

Brockley said that was a fabrication. He argued the act of abandoning an injured pet in a rural area without shelter constituted torture. McKnight knew the dog would starve to death or be killed by another animal, he said.

McKnight has pleaded not guilty to a single count of torturing an animal, a felony. His lawyer, Gene Gordon, said authorities do not know how the fractures occurred and that his client’s behavior was a misdemeanor, at worst.

“It does not rise to the level of torturing or maiming an animal. He dropped off the animal and left it there,” Gordon said.

Judge Peter Ottenweller ruled there was enough evidence presented during the preliminary hearing to place McKnight on trial. He ordered McKnight to return to court May 6.

“Obviously, Mr. McKnight made a very poor decision in this case,” the judge said.

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.