An Open Letter to Anyone With a Voice Big Enough to Matter
To those who can be heard when others cannot:
Please help save Sergeant Snuggles.
Snuggles is a young Anatolian Shepherd—a livestock guardian—who belongs to a veteran family in Pima County, Arizona. In October 2025, on his own property, he bit a family member during a moment of extreme stress: a female dog in heat, coyotes nearby, days of agitation, and a startle from behind. It was his first bite. The family member recovered. She has since said, in her own words, that he did not “attack” her, that he stopped when he recognized her, and that she wants him home.
A court still ordered him destroyed. Pima Animal Care Center has held him ever since. He has now spent nearly a year in a kennel. County medical records document repeated “shelter stress.” His family has posted bond, paid thousands in boarding fees, offered stronger fencing, professional behavior work, and even transfer to a qualified sanctuary. They have asked only that he not be killed while those options exist.
Mercy is not the same as pretending a bite never happened. It is choosing the least irreversible path when the person who was hurt is asking for his life, when the dog has no prior history, and when a working guardian breed did what that breed is wired to do under the wrong conditions. Death cannot be undone. A second chance, with conditions, can.
If you have a platform, use it. Share his name. Ask why a first-incident dog is still locked away nearly a year later while his family begs for a humane alternative. Ask Pima County officials to allow transfer to a sanctuary or return under strict safeguards instead of carrying out a death sentence the family and the injured relative oppose.
Snuggles cannot speak. The people who love him have nearly exhausted their money and their legal options. What they still have is the hope that someone with a louder voice will refuse to look away.
Please help bring Sergeant Snuggles home.
#FreeSnugglesNow
#SaveSnuggles
Petition:
change.org/p/save-our-family…
Legal filings and updates are public in Evancho v. City of Tucson / Pima County, U.S. District Court, District of Arizona.
With respect and urgency,
A friend of a family that only wants their dog back.