A 31-year-old Fort Collins hospital worker has been charged with aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly slitting the throat of her boyfriend’s Australian Shepherd mix.
The woman, Nicole Ann Anderson, allegedly killed the dog after it attacked and killed her small poodle.
According to a police affidavit, Anderson told co-workers at the Poudre Valley Hospital that it took a considerable time to kill the large dog and that “it didn’t go well.”
Anderson’s boyfriend was out of town at the time of the June 21 incident and Anderson allegedly asked her sister and ex-husband for help, requesting they provide her with a gun, police said. Both refused to provide a gun.
However, Anderson’s ex-husband did come over to the apartment which Anderson shares with her boyfriend.
Anderson told co-workers her ex-husband tried to kill the Australian Shepherd by first trying to choke it and then by trying to break its neck.
When the dog resisted, the ex-husband held the dog down and Nicole Anderson slit the dog’s throat, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said that co-workers at the hospital said Anderson appeared emotionally disturbed by the events and kept repeating to co-workers, “the blood, the blood,” and “it didn’t go well.”
But she also allegedly told one worker that “once we got to the trachea, it was easy after that.”
The affidavit said that Anderson related the events to her colleagues on June 22 and was sent home from the hospital. Kevin Darst, spokesman for the Poudre Valley Health System, said Anderson was a registered nurse at the hospital. However, he said that she left her job at the hospital in early July.
The next day the hospital contacted the Larimer County Humane Society.
Officers from the Humane Society immediately went to Anderson’s apartment. They found the two dogs wrapped in plastic bags in one of the community Dumpsters at the apartment complex.
The Australian Shepherd had a large, 9-inch laceration around its neck.
The bodies of the dogs were taken to the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory for a necropsy.
Police said the necropsy was consistent with Anderson’s description of the animals’ deaths.
The smaller dog died of injuries consistent with being killed by a larger animal. The Australian Shepherd suffered “acute, severe laceration with jugular and tracheal transaction,” and head trauma consistent with blunt force trauma, according to police.
Police said that in emails to a neighbor, Anderson said that her son – a child with special needs – was not home at the time of the incident. She also gave no indication in the emails that the Australian Shepherd made any threats or caused her any fear after the poodle was killed, said investigators.
Anderson claimed that her boyfriend gave his consent to having the large dog “put down” and suggested she put it in a kennel until he returned.
Anderson allegedly told co-workers that she didn’t want to place the dog in a kennel. She allegedly didn’t want to take the dog to the pound to be put down because it was late at night and the shelter wasn’t open.
Fort Collins Detective Bryan Vogel said in the arrest affidavit that the manner in which the dog was killed – the choking, the attempt to break its neck, the cutting of the throat and hitting the dog in the head – meets the definition of “knowingly torture” under Colorado law.
He said both Anderson and her ex-husband have refused to answer questions about the incident.
Anderson is to appear in court on Friday.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
