After leaving their dog in the hands of a kennel over the Thanksgiving holiday, a Corinth couple discovered their pet was mauled to death by another dog.

"Maggie," a small pit bull, killed "Jax," a chow-border collie mix, while they were both boarded at a Lake Dallas kennel.

Canine Academy's owner, Paula Davis, said the two dogs had been placed together for four days without incident before the attack happened.

"I do care about these guys and I do the very best I can," she said through tears. "...Maggie had no violent tendencies."

Maggie and Jax were about the same size.

Jax's owners said they were disturbed to discover the dog was placed with a pit bull.

"If I had known there were pit bulls on the premises, I never would have boarded him there," said Demetria Tricomi, Jax's owner.

Tricomi had also left "Mo," a minature Doberman, at the kennel and it is suspected that he likely witnessed the mauling.

"And to think he was most likely left tortured and there for hours, yeah, I'm mad," Tricomi said. "I'm upset."


"She wasn't bleeding from the eye; her eye was gouged out," he said.

The pet owners said while they don't necessarily want Canine Academy shut down, they have hired an attorney and said they want to change state law so that kennel owners require licenses and regulatory control.

"[A] scratch, okay," Tricomi said. "But mauled to death and left unattended, not okay."

Davis said she is remorseful over the loss of Jax, but has all clients sign waivers acknowledging that dogs may injure one another.

"They're dogs and you can attribute it to that," she said.

For now, Davis plans to keep boarding pets and has about a dozen dogs still in her care.