Dog owner reaches plea agreement in brutal mauling

The man whose dogs mauled an elderly Pahrump man in March who later died reached a guilty plea agreement on Monday avoiding a trial.

Ricky Davidson, 40, pleaded guilty to one count of reckless endangerment, a gross misdemeanor. He is scheduled for sentencing on July 6.

Prosecutor Michael Vieta-Kabel said it took some time for both sides to come to an agreement on the case, as Davidson was also facing a drug and traffic citation charges in a separate case.

“The negotiations were ongoing and in order to execute a guilty plea we require very specific paperwork so we had to make sure the paperwork was prepared and prepared correctly,” he said.

The attack occurred at 1091 Black Street when Kenneth Ford, 79, went next door to feed the property owner’s cats. Davidson was a tenant at the property.

According to sheriff’s deputies, three pit bulls jumped over a six-foot fence and brutally mauled Ford.

During the attack, Ford screamed for help to which his two friends came to his aid and were also attacked by the dogs.

After dragging Ford to safety and closing the gate, the dogs found a hole in the fence and began to attack the man again.

One of the rescuers obtained a gun and shot two of the dogs, but that did little to thwart the attack, as both dogs continued to maul the man after being shot. Medical crews arriving on scene were able to scare the dogs away by activating the lights and sirens on their emergency vehicles deputies said.

Both deputies and animal control officers were able to capture and secure all of the dogs, one of which was euthanized for injuries sustained from the gunshot.

Ford died on April 15 without ever leaving University Medical Center in Las Vegas, a month after the March 13 attack. However, the Clark County Coroner’s Office said Tuesday that it has yet to determine a cause of death.

In April, Davidson was found guilty on one count of animals running at large and two counts of allowing an animal to attack another animal. The charges stem from two incidents where Davidson’s dogs escaped their enclosure and killed two dogs belonging to a neighbor on Aug. 19 and Sept. 1, 2014.

He was sentenced to 12 months in jail and fined $1,000.

Vietta-Kabel said a valuable lesson can be learned from the tragic incidents.

“Hopefully we will never see him reoffend again,” he said. “Most of the people in our community own animals and love their animals and they do a great job with taking care of them but occasionally we do see problems with keeping animals as we’ve seen before in other cases. We take each case as it comes and try to deal with them all responsibly and make sure that we are enforcing the laws of Nye County and the state of Nevada.”