Rescued dogs at heart of DC animal cruelty probe get fresh start

The tense 14 February incident was splashed all over local media in the nation's capital and even mentioned by the White House.

The suspect, accused of breeding and mistreating his pets, had barricaded himself into his southeast Washington DC home and fired on the officers trying to arrest him, injuring three in the process.

Once he was finally taken into custody, a Humane Rescue Alliance team found 31 canines - 20 adults and 11 puppies - inside the home, with bite wounds and other injuries.

According to court documents, the dogs were "living in their own waste", with neighbours "complaining of the [odour] of urine and [faeces] coming from the house".

HRA officials - who investigated the abuse allegations - removed the animals from their unsanitary living conditions and placed them in a shelter.

The dogs, all American Bullies or "some mix thereof", ranged from two months to several years old, according to the organisation. On Saturday, HRA thrilled local dog lovers with a huge adoption drive.

When Kevin Peterson saw the dogs on TV as part of HRA's campaign one night earlier, he turned to his wife and said: "I'm going! I'm going to be there when it opens."

He kept rewinding the segment so he could get a better look at every dog and puppy featured in it, and then he saw her - a brown Bully puppy no more than 10 weeks old.

She reminded him of his last dog, a Blue Bully named Peyton who he had raised from eight weeks and who had lived to 15 years.

Mr Peterson was not sure he ever wanted to replace Peyton. "I loved my blue," he told the BBC. "I didn't want to get another colour."

He went down to the adoption centre three hours earlier than the event began, so that he could be the one with "first dibs".

And, while other prospective owners sat around in the parking lot waiting for their turn, he got out of his car and went inside, to ask questions and say which dog he was there for. The centre let him into the pen so he could interact with the animals.

"She really came right up to me," Mr Peterson claims of the pooch he adopted. "They asked me, which one do you want? I said I want the one that wants me."

He named her Coco Cinnamon Peterson, a name his grand-daughter has already put on a plaque to show the dog she is family.

Mr Peterson has not received her official adoption papers yet to confirm it but believes that she is of mixed breed.

The American Bully breed is banned in the UK, a move that he does not understand because he says, while Peyton was protective of her owner and home, she "never ever bothered anybody" in her lifetime.

"Dogs are how you make them or how they see what you do," Mr Peterson said, before conceding "I don't know what it is."

Then he added: "But a German Shepherd will bite you just as hard as a pit bull."

Tired from playing with her new owner's young relatives, Coco was snoring on his lap as Mr Peterson spoke to the BBC.

"I don't want this dog to think - when she sees the pictures of [Peyton] - that I just picked her because she looks like my other dog," he said.

"We had a life with her, we loved her and she loved us, and she went to heaven," he added. "Now I've got another dog and she don't love us [but] we're going to love her."

Six of the 31 rescues have been adopted by their HRA caretakers. By the end of Saturday's adoption drive, 14 dogs - including Coco - had been adopted.

The remaining dogs are receiving training and behavioural support to prepare them for new homes, the organisation said.

-bbc