Cypress Arrow Animal Cruelty Case Gets National Coverage, Pineville Trainer Speaks Out

WARNING the videos shown may be disturbing to some viewers.  The Cypress Arrow K9 facility animal abuse story is getting national media attention.  The story appeared on Fox News and in People Magazine over the weekend.  ABC 31 News’ Joel Massey has more on the story from the perspective of a local dog trainer who says from what he has seen the behavior shown in the videos rise to the level of abuse.

Ryan Collins, owner of the Alpha Omega K9 training facility said, “Techniques like we use is more trying to earn trust with the dog, giving the dog some treats making the dog want to come up to you and please you nothing like trying to force the dog into submission or show the dog any type of dominance or anything like that.”

The Pineville dog trainer says he was appalled at the training techniques used in a video that surfaced on Facebook recently. Tina Frey and her daughter Victoria Brimer of the Cypress Arrow K9 Academy in Lena were arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of Aggravated Cruelty to animals.

“I’ve known Tina for a lot of years.  She’s a local dog trainer she was very respected around here.  When everybody started sending me the videos it just blew my mind that she trained a dog like that.

“Back tying a dog like Phenix the Corso, they actually had two leashes on him and were beating him with a horse whip it’s very disturbing to a lot of people who are trying to do dog training the right way.”

Kayci Gonzales’ chocolate lab Yazzie was pushed down reputedly in a video that was posted by an employee that had just been fired by Cypress Arrow.  Frey claimed that Yazzie was acting aggressively prior to what was shown but when Collins did an evaluation on Yazzie he found her to be docile.

“I put her through all kinds of situations where we had a little girl who comes on Saturday and she volunteers and she plays with the dogs and she’ll do some cleaning and stuff like that she just loves being around dogs and she wants to be a vet when she grows up.  She just happened to be here.  So one of the first things I did was put Yazzie around her she did great she showed no signs of aggression towards children.”

Matt demonstrated how he trains Bugsy a German Shephard mix by leading the dog with food to make him sit and lay down.

Sherriff Mark Wood told me that Frey had been employed as a volunteer reserve officer relating to her training of K9s but is not anymore.  He says he is pleased with the way the investigation has gone so far.

Wood said, “The video was disturbing and very horrific to some people.  But I want to commend my guys that really stayed the course on the investigation they didn’t give to public pressure.  We don’t have the luxury to look and jump at something.  We have to build a solid case.  We have to gather evidence.  We go where that evidence takes us.  We interview people.  Like right now, if there are any more complainants out there please contact our office.

“It took us several days.  Just because it is on Facebook does not mean it’s true.  We have to make sure everything is like it is like you see.”

Collins told me about the difference between what was in the videos and how he trains dogs.

“Here we don’t use any type of aggression techniques everything is positive reinforcement for the dogs the dogs work a lot better when you praise them with treats, and you praise them with toys.”

If you had a dog at the Cypress Arrow facility and would like to lodge a complaint or if you have any new information on this case please contact RPSO at 318-473-6700.