A dog was found dead in the backyard of a home in Buckeye, Arizona, and neighbors want answers. The Buckeye Police Department must finish a thorough investigation, and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office must pursue animal cruelty charges if the evidence supports them.

Officers went to the home in the Tartesso neighborhood on Nov. 6 after a report that animals there were being neglected and abandoned. After spotting a dead dog in the yard, they came back with a search warrant and removed its body.

Neighbors say more than a dozen dogs lived at the property, and that problems there go back to about 2021. They describe rats, piles of trash, flies and a strong smell. Drone video from FOX 10 Phoenix showed garbage across the yard, broken fencing, dirty tubs of water and several holes dug in the dirt. “There’s debris, feces, flies everywhere,” one neighbor told FOX 10 Phoenix.

Other dogs were still at the home after police left with the dead dog. Neighbors say they saw those dogs taken away in the middle of the night on Nov. 10. It has not been made public who took them or where they are now.

Police say the investigation is still open. Neighbors want it to go all the way: a full account of what happened to every dog at that home, and accountability for anyone found responsible. In Arizona, animal cruelty is a crime, and a case like this deserves to be treated like one.

Sign the petition to demand a full investigation and real accountability for the dogs of this Buckeye home before the case fades from view.