{"id":2115,"date":"2026-06-29T14:04:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2115"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:04:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:04:36","slug":"she-fought-in-a-denver-court-to-save-her-dogs-life-she-ended-up-sentenced-to-90-days-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=2115","title":{"rendered":"She fought in a Denver court to save her dog\u2019s life. She ended up sentenced to 90 days in jail."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Monica Lopez wanted her dog to live.<\/p>\n

Her German shepherd was accused of biting two people and, with other dogs, killing a cat. Denver Animal Protection officials wanted to euthanize the dog, named Lightning, because they felt he was too dangerous to live. Lopez fought in Denver County Court for months, hoping to prove Lightning wasn\u2019t dangerous and should be returned to her.<\/p>\n

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In April, Lopez pleaded guilty to four municipal crimes: failing to comply with the city\u2019s potentially dangerous animal protocols, keeping a dangerous dog and failing to license and vaccinate the canine. At sentencing, Judge Renee Goble ruled Lopez wouldn\u2019t go to jail, but she would lose ownership of Lightning. Animal protection officials would decide the dog\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

That likely meant euthanasia. Lopez and her attorney gave it one more shot. They filed a motion to reconsider, asking the judge to send Lightning to a specialized animal sanctuary. At a June 2 hearing, Goble expressed frustration with the ongoing litigation, a transcript shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cMunicipal courts operate with limited resources, and those resources exist to serve our public and all litigants who appear before this court,\u201d the judge said, according to the transcript. \u201cThey do not exist so that parties can repeatedly relitigate matters and come in here just because you disagree with what we decided.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said that since the April sentencing, she\u2019d watched a trial for Lopez\u2019s partner, the owner of a second dog involved in the attacks, and that the evidence in that case, before a different judge, had convinced Goble that she\u2019d been too lenient in sentencing Lopez.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s you. You do not know how to take care of an animal,\u201d the judge told Lopez.<\/p>\n

She re-sentenced Lopez to 90 days in jail and ordered that Lightning be euthanized that day.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis court is deeply troubled by the conduct that has occurred throughout these proceedings,\u201d Goble said. \u201cThe volumes of filings, the repeating attempts to relitigate issues that have already been settled, the overhand handling of matters that have already been raised. I am \u2014 I \u2014 I don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m going to do about that part because right now, Ms. Lopez, my job is to punish you. Your dog\u2019s getting killed today and you\u2019re going to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case illustrates the stakes of Denver\u2019s dangerous dog prosecutions, an oft-unscrutinized area of law enforcement that sits at the intersection of the city\u2019s animal welfare, public safety and court systems. For dogs, the cases are life or death. For owners, the proceedings can cost thousands of dollars and land them in jail. For animal protection officers, the wrong decision could mean someone gets hurt.<\/p>\n

Yona Porat, Lopez\u2019s attorney, believes the judge\u2019s 90-day jail sentence was illegal because it was handed down at a reconsideration hearing \u2014 at such hearings, Porat argued in court filings, judges are allowed to reduce sentences, but not increase them. After the judge imposed the sentence on June 2, Porat immediately sought to delay the judge\u2019s order that Lightning be killed and moved to challenge the jail sentence.<\/p>\n

Lopez spent the night in jail. She couldn\u2019t sleep.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAll I could think about was my dog being euthanized,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Goble granted Porat\u2019s request that Lightning\u2019s euthanasia be delayed pending their appeal. But it was too late. City officials had already killed the dog.<\/p>\n

Now, Lopez\u2019s partner, Danielle Gallegos, is facing her own sentencing for dog-related crimes on July 8 \u2014 and Lopez is hoping the couple can still save their second dog, Thunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never gave us any kind of answer as to why they couldn\u2019t re-home them to the sanctuary,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n

A history of complaints<\/h4>\n

Melanie Sobel, director of Denver Animal Protection and the Denver Animal Shelter, responded with a single word when she heard from one of her employees that Goble had sentenced Lopez to serve 90 days in jail and ordered Lightning to be euthanized that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeautiful,\u201d she wrote in a text message, released to Porat as part of an open records request.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Denver Post, Sobel said she used \u201cvery poor choice of wording\u201d in her text.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an expression of immense relief that this dog wouldn\u2019t have to sit in a cage for eight months, which it had been,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026My comment was not celebrating the euthanasia of an animal or this individual being arrested, but simply the completion of this case we had been waiting on for eight months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver Animal Protection officials took custody of Lightning and Thunder in October, after they escaped their yard in the city\u2019s Sunnyside neighborhood, along with a third dog that Gallegos and Lopez were dog-sitting.<\/p>\n

The three dogs ran loose in the neighborhood, then ran up to a woman who was walking by and bit her in her lower back, causing shallow scrapes and bruising, according to an affidavit filed against Lopez. The dogs also attacked a cat. A witness described the three dogs \u201cplaying tug of war\u201d with the cat, which was mortally wounded, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The dogs\u2019 attack that day was not the first incident involving Thunder and Lightning.<\/p>\n

In 2019, animal protection officers cited Gallegos for failing to neuter the two dogs.\u00a0In 2021, animal protection officers responded to the couple\u2019s home for a reported dog attack \u2014 in which no one was injured \u2014 and cited Lopez for failing to license and neuter Lightning.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the two dogs got out of Gallegos\u2019 and Lopez\u2019s yard, and a neighbor brought them back home. As the man opened the gate to return the dogs to the yard, the dogs bit him on both legs, the man reported to animal protection officers, resulting in minor punctures and superficial scrapes, according to an affidavit.<\/p>\n

That 2022 attack meant Lopez had to register Lightning as a \u2014 a legal designation in Denver that triggers additional safety restrictions for the dog, including that the German shepherd wear a muzzle when out in public and that the owner must put up warning signs. Lopez was cited in September 2025 for failing to muzzle the dog, court records show. Gallegos was also cited in 2004 for leaving an aggressive Rottweiler in the back of a pickup truck.<\/p>\n

Lt. Josh Rolfe, with Denver Animal Protection, told The Post that the couple at times tried to hide their dogs from city officials and at one point used different names for the canines. He noted the couple\u2019s lengthy history with animal protection.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur goal, in general, is to keep animals in homes when we can,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a decade of demonstrated history where we kept these animals in this home despite repeated incidents with the owners and a real lack of collaboration with them.\u00a0Yes, we are here today, but it is after a decade of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lopez and Gallegos maintain that Thunder and Lightning are not dangerous, and that the bites were out-of-character attacks prompted by particular stressful circumstances.<\/p>\n

During the most recent court proceedings, Lopez presented evidence from an expert based in Florida, James Crosby of Canine Aggression Consulting, who opined that Lighting\u2019s bites caused such minor injuries that he was not particularly dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cDogs the size and conformation of the dogs allegedly involved here that did not have proper and safe bite inhibition and control could have, even in a single engagement, easily torn and\/or avulsed substantial tissue and inflicted far more damage,\u201d he wrote in a report. \u201cIn my professional experience and training, this shows that any dog(s) that inflict this limited force of their bites are no more likely to inflict serious or severe injury than any dog(s) with a recorded minor previous bite.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple also collected letters of support for the animals, including one from the man who was bitten in 2022, who said the dogs were \u201calways friendly and would lick our hands\u201d when he visited with them while they were behind a fence, and that he did not want to see the two dogs euthanized.<\/p>\n

On the day he was bitten, he\u2019d had an argument with his wife and believed the dogs \u201csensed my anger and became defensive,\u201d the man wrote in a May letter. He urged authorities to consider other options besides euthanasia.<\/p>\n

The woman who was bitten in October told animal control officers the dogs were \u201cunsafe\u201d and should be euthanized, according to an affidavit.<\/p>\n

Lopez, who was released on bail, plans to appeal her 90-day jail sentence. She said Lightning loved playing hide-and-seek, swimming and playing fetch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great dog,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think he deserved to be euthanized.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lopez and Porat found a specialized dog sanctuary that was willing to take Lightning after her April sentencing, the option seemed like a perfect fit, Porat said. They were encouraged when Goble granted a hearing on their motion to reconsider \u2014 a request she could have just denied without calling everyone back to court, Porat said.<\/p>\n

Goble did not return a request for comment on her ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe litigation was just coming from, for Monica, a completely selfless place \u2014 she wasn\u2019t saying she wanted to get her dogs back, she was just saying she wanted the dogs to live,\u201d Porat said. \u201cShe thought allowing them to go to a sanctuary was a good outcome for everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea did not receive support from Denver Animal Protection. Sobel said the shelter has a duty to keep members of the public safe from dangerous dogs and that dogs can be mishandled at or escape from sanctuaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly disagree with dangerous dogs going and living their life in a cage for the rest of their life,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026That is not a life for an animal to be in a kennel for the rest of its life. That is not something we advocate for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Due diligence to protect the public\u2019<\/h4>\n

Denver Animal Protection euthanizes animals only if they are past the point of medical help or are dangerous, Sobel said.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s shelter euthanized 18% of all dogs it received in 2025 \u2014 nearly one in five. That is tied for the highest percentage of dogs euthanized among Colorado\u2019s top 10 busiest dog shelters, according to statistics collected under the state\u2019s Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act.<\/p>\n