FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Finally freed from their tiny metal cage, Bella, Blue, North and Supreme burst out into the sun and ran circles in the Fort Lauderdale backyard. They had the zoomies.

The four French bulldogs had been cooped up in the May heat, sitting in their own feces and urine and sometimes left without adequate food and water for five days, according to Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Whitney Ptak. A man and his son are now facing a series of criminal charges in the dogs’ neglect.

“Those Frenchies ran out of there like it was their day job,” Ptak told reporters at a news conference Wednesday. “They appeared to have never been taken care of properly.”

Ptak is part of Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s Animal Crimes Unit, which launched in April 2024 and has already rescued roughly 100 animals and conducted investigations resulting in 26 charges, officers announced at a news conference Wednesday. The unit now has new tools at its disposal thanks to “Dexter’s Law,” which went into effect Tuesday and requires the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to create a public database of animal abusers and hardens sentences for repeat offenders.

The new law adds to existing municipal ordinances that forbid animal cruelty or neglect, including leaving a pet in too small of a space or outside in the hot Florida sun.

“The City of Fort Lauderdale and the city police department are taking these crimes against animals very seriously,” said Don Londeree, a prosecutor with the Fort Lauderdale city attorney’s office.

Fort Lauderdale’s unit arose informally last year, Ptak said, when a group of women in the department decided to figure out how to better investigate and charge animal crimes.

“A lot of people didn’t know how to handle the cases,” she said. “So then it was, OK, we’re animal lovers, let’s sit down and figure out how to actually prosecute and convict these people of these charges.”

The unit now has between 22 and 25 people. Two recent cases, including the French bulldog case, have resulted in the rescue of seven dogs and criminal charges for the owners. While some cases involve individuals who simply mistreat their pets, the leading cause of the animal crimes the unit encounters appears to be breeding operations, Ptak said.

That was the case with the French bulldogs. Police uncovered that Sean Eggelletion and his father of the same name had been using the dogs, two of which were recently pregnant, to breed more French bulldogs and sell them on social media, according to Ptak and an incident report.

Police had initially received a Crime Stoppers tip about the dogs and found that Eggelletion had left them in the locked cage at his mother’s home. A neighbor informed them that his mother has dementia. Eggelletion was the only one with the key to the cage, and lived elsewhere. Officers ended up having to use bolt cutters to free the dogs.

The father and son are now charged with violating six different city ordinances: leaving a dog or cat outdoors in extreme weather, failing to provide a dog or cat with food and water, failing to provide periodic supervision, failing to provide adequate space for exercise, failing to provide an adequate fence, and leaving a dog outside between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The charges are criminal misdemeanors, spokesperson Casey Liening said. Each charge carries four counts for each dog.

In another case of severe neglect, the owners said they simply didn’t have the ability to take care of their dogs properly, according to Ptak and a probable cause affidavit.

Ptak had received a tip in the early hours of the morning June 27 about three pitbulls that appeared severely neglected. Hours later, she arrived at the home in the 600 block of Northwest 14th Terrace to find the dogs outside in the heat, severely emaciated and sick.

When she opened the fence, she immediately saw a tiny, three-month-old puppy named Pleasure who was soaking wet, his spine was protruding from his body, confined to a dirty kennel swarming with flies. He was so thirsty and hungry that he ran to eat bugs and drink dirty water, according to a probable cause affidavit. Nearby, police found another pitbull, Lucky, in a wet kennel that was bound shut with five leashes, her hip bones protruding. A third dog, Thor, was wandering around the enclosure with no shade or shelter with open wounds that appeared untreated.

Ptak then spoke to the dogs’ owners, Destiny Bray and Frederick Pinkney. Bray told officers that the other puppies in the litter had died, according to the affidavit. She added that she knew they had untreated medical conditions but that she took care of the dogs every day.

The two had kept Lucky and Thor outside for the last few months and had put Pleasure outside within the last week “because they didn’t want Pleasure pooping in the house,” the affidavit states. They also said they are moving and “didn’t want the smell of dogs inside of the house.”

Ptak said the two told her they “didn’t have the income to take care of them.”

Bray and Pinkney are now charged with three counts of animal cruelty and three counts of abandoning or confining animals without sufficient food, water or exercise.

The Animal Crimes Unit faces unique challenges. Prosecuting the crimes is difficult work, given that the victims can’t attest to their own suffering. “Dogs can’t state, ‘I’ve been without food for 5 or 6 days,'” Ptak said. Instead, police and prosecutors rely on veterinarian records and necropsy reports in the cases of animals that have died.

The officers require special training and often deal with animals that aren’t necessarily friendly or trusting of people.

The dogs in both criminal cases were taken to Broward County Animal Care. After they receive necessary care, they will be available for adoption.

In May, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two new laws targeting animal crimes. “Dexter’s Law,” which went into effect Tuesday, requires the creation of the FDLE database and imposes a “sentencing multiplier” for aggregated animal-cruelty offenses that include the knowing and intentional torture or torment of an animal that injured, mutilated, or killed the animal. “Trooper’s law,” which goes into effect Oct. 1, makes it a third-degree felony to abandon any pet outside during a natural disaster.

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