For months, neighbors near a Putnam County, Florida property watched more than 30 huskies turn on each other, again and again, until 15 of them had to be put down. A 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy heard one of those dogs die. A woman trying to help was almost attacked herself and had to be pulled to safety by a stranger driving by.

None of that was enough to stop it. A former Putnam County Animal Control officer says he warned his supervisors this situation was "a ticking time bomb," according to Action News Jax, but the department had no legal authority to act on the property without the owner's cooperation, and the owner ignored every attempt to reach him. It took a neighbor filing a civil lawsuit, and a judge finally ordering access to the property, before officers could even witness an attack directly. Only then could Mark Plosila, the property owner, be charged, and only with a single count of animal cruelty, because officials could only prove he witnessed and ignored that one incident.

Eleven puppies pulled from that property now need foster homes. Fifteen dogs are gone. And the underlying problem, animal control officers who can see a crisis building but can't intervene until a court gets involved, is still there.

Putnam County's Board of County Commissioners should give Animal Control Services the authority to issue citations and act on credible reports of animal hoarding or neglect, without waiting for a lawsuit to force a court order first. Sign the petition to demand that change, before another neighborhood has to watch this happen again.