- Pasha the dog walked alone into Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newton Beach, California, with 300 tumors
- Mary Kay Sodaro, 52, has been arrested and charged with a felony count of cruelty to animals and two misdemeanors
- Pasha had a rubber band tied around her largest tumor and had to be euthanized
A woman has been arrested in California after police found a dog in the corner of a hospital chapel covered in 300 tumors.
An 11-year-old Boston Terrier named Pasha had a rubber band twisted tightly around one tumor larger than a golf ball on her jaw in an attempt to stop the growth.
The dog’s owner Mary Kay Sodaro, 52, has been arrested and charged with a felony count of cruelty to animals, one misdemeanor count of failure to care for an animal and another misdemeanor count of allowing an animal to roam free on a public street.
Mary Kay Sodaro (pictured) has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty after her Boston Terrier was found in a California hospital with 300 tumors
It is unclear how Pasha ended up inside the Hoag Memorial Hospital chapel. She wasn’t wearing a leash, and witnesses say they saw her wander in alone, according to the LA Times.
She was identified when she called Newport Beach animal control looking for her dog.
Sodaro pleaded not guilty to the charges, but allegedly admitted to putting the rubber band on the dog’s tumor, claiming she thought it would cut off the circulation and cause the tumor to fall off.
Instead, it was there ‘long enough’ that the tumor continued to grow over it, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jennifer Malone.
Sodaro had twice taken Pasha to the vet recently, but allegedly refused treatment both times.
The dog was found inside the Hoag Memorial Hospital (pictured) chapel in Newport Beach, California. Pasha was euthanized
Just days before Pasha was found at the hospital, officials said a vet offered to euthanize the dog for free because of her ‘irremediable pain and suffering.’
Pasha was euthanized after she was found.
After her death a vet found that the rubber band had become embedded in the tumor and caused a skin infection. The tumor had grown so large that it affected Pasha’s nasal passages, Malone said.
If Sodaro is convicted, she faces a maximum of three and a half years in state prison.