Forty-four dogs are alive today because someone finally stepped in. After a weeks-long investigation, a Marysville animal control officer found dozens of West Highland Terriers — 42 of them — living in a breeding operation packed into a trailer. Two more dogs of a different breed were pulled out alongside them. When they were rescued on August 31, many were matted down to the skin, caked in feces, soaked in urine, and showing signs of medical distress.

The Marysville Prosecutor's Office has now been handed 43 counts of second-degree animal cruelty and one count tied to illegal breeding practices. That's the evidence. What hasn't happened yet is an actual charge, let alone a conviction — the person responsible has not been formally charged, and it isn't clear whether an arrest warrant has even been issued.

The dogs are still recovering at Everett Animal Shelter, some of them sick enough to need hospitalization, all of them held under quarantine while staff try to get ahead of the risk of parvovirus before resuming their grooming and medical care. More than 250 people have already applied to adopt them — but adoption can't happen until this case moves forward, because these dogs are still evidence in an open investigation.

Forty-four charges on paper mean nothing if the case stalls. The Marysville Prosecutor's Office and local law enforcement need to know the public is watching and expects this breeder to be formally charged and prosecuted to the full extent the evidence supports — not quietly settled or left to languish.

Sign the petition to demand full prosecution of the Marysville breeder — these dogs already survived the worst part; don't let the case that's supposed to protect them go nowhere.