LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. — A 21-year-old dog trainer in Loxahatchee has been arrested and faces five charges of animal cruelty, including video evidence from the owner that shows her apparently choking and kicking dogs.
Blessing Knighten was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday morning and bonded out five hours later.
"Palm Beach County has zero tolerance for animal cruelty and we're very those partnerships with the state attorney's office and also with the sheriff's office and all of the other police departments," Dave Walesky with Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control told WPTV. "We're all on the same page. Animal cruelty has no place in our community and we will see it prosecuted every time we can."
Animal control received a complaint from Steve Cabral, the owner of Fine Line Family K-9 at 14914 77th Place, on March 18 about Knighten and another trainer who had left the state for Michigan. He subsequently supplied three videos involving a Belgian Malinos and a black German Shepherd.
Cabral fired her but Knighton said she was instructed to treat the dogs that way by her former employer.
She told investigators she had worked for Fine Line Family K-9 for two months.
In one video, Knighten is seen choking a dog for 15 to 20 seconds.
"He showed me a video of Blessing Knighten strangling a German shepherd on what Cabral called a bite box," according to the arrest report. "The dog’s front legs were off the ground. She then walks the dog around and the dog appears to be limping and in distress. She then hangs the dog back on the bite box. It struggles, and you can hear the dog yelp."
On April 5, Knighten accused Cabral of blackmail.
The investigator said in the arrest report: "She stated that if a dog bites, you hold the dog up by the leash and they had to do what was told or they would be fired. Ms. Knighten stated she had a problem with that and how he was treating the dogs.' Mr. Cabral told her that if she had a problem with that, he would show them the videos. She confirmed that there is a video. I asked if she used his methods and she said 'yes' in the beginning, because she was in a bad spot at that time."
She told authorities that typical training methods included “not feeding the dogs," "yanking crank stuff" and not buying food.
“The dogs were very, very skinny," she told the investigator.
In the preliminary conclusion, the investigator wrote: "Blessing Knighten abused two dogs repeatedly and defined it as training. This is a clear case of animal abuse causing mental and physical pain."