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Pleasant Grove police charged a man with aggravated animal cruelty after they found a dog and two puppies unprotected and unfed in this week's single-digit temperatures. A third puppy was dead and half-eaten by its siblings.

(Pleasant Grove Police)

A Pleasant Grove man was arrested after police say they found his dogs without food, water or shelter in single-digit weather.

The dogs, a mother and two puppies, were severely malnourished, said police Sgt. Danny Reid. The puppies were so starving, he said, that they had partially eaten a third puppy that had died. "There was no other food,'' Reid said.

Police were called to Erick Fitzpatrick's home Wednesday night by a concerned neighbor who told officers the dogs were shivering in the cold. They were in nice pens, police said, but had no food and no shelter for warmth. While there was water in the bowls, it was frozen solid.

"The dogs were emaciated,'' Reid said. "You could see their ribs, and the outlines of their skulls."

The temperature was 16 degrees when police arrived at the scene, with a wind chill in single digits. "They were just out there shivering,'' Reid said.

The dogs' owner, 34-year-old Erick Fitzpatrick, came home while police were there. He denied any mistreatment of the animals.

Erick Fitzpatrick

The dogs were taken in to custody of Birmingham Jefferson Animal Control. Reid on Thursday obtained a felony warrant for aggravated animal cruelty, a crime established by Alabama lawmakers in 2013.

A person commits aggravated animal cruelty by intentionally or knowingly committing an act of animal cruelty or neglect with torture. The word "torture" means inflicting "inhumane treatment or gross physical abuse meant to cause the animal intensive or prolonged pain or serious physical injury, or by causing the death of the animal." Aggravated animal cruelty is a Class C felony.

Fitzpatrick turned himself in to the Jefferson County Jail Thursday evening and was released after posting $10,000 bond. "We as a community need to look out for, and protect, these animals that can't take care of themselves,'' Reid said.