Gilbert dog kennel kept accepting pets after others perished, according to pet owner. 
 
 Snow Aubel's dogs, Cheyenne (gray, upper left) and Yepa (brown, middle), in a photo taken by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on June 21. (Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office) 
 
 The Gilbert dog kennel where 20 dogs perished last weekend continued to accept other pets into their care after the other pets had died, according to a woman who left her dogs at the facility hours before Maricopa County deputies responded to the kennel. 
 
 Snow Aubel, 33, said she phoned the Green Acre Dog Boarding facility to confirm her pets' drop-off time at about 10 a.m. Saturday morning and told the facility's owner, Todd Hughes, she could be there within the hour. That was no problem, he said, and nothing seemed amiss at the facility when she arrived on schedule. 
 
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 About two hours later, deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office would swarm the property, transporting blanketed, dead dogs in wheelbarrow gurneys. They are said to have been dead since late Thursday night or early Friday morning. 
 
 "He never said anything about what was going on," Aubel said of Hughes. "He just took my dogs." 
 
 The kennel's owners did not respond to request for comment at their home and over the phone on Thursday. 
 
 In total, 20 of the 28 dogs the Sheriff's Office found at the facility perished. Aubel's were alive. 
 
 Her 7-year-old Weimaraner, Cheyenne, and 6-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Yepa, would remain at the facility until Sunday afternoon, when a representative from Rover, the canine-booking site Aubel used to make the reservation, called to say they would be finding the dogs' accommodations elsewhere. 
 
 Aubel, who is a relative of an azcentral.com employee, said she was never contacted by the owners or the Sheriff's Office, and was unaware of the situation until Rover relayed the news. 
 
 Sheriff Joe Arpaio said deputies did not take custody of the living dogs away from the facility because it was, and is still, unknown whether a crime had occurred. 
 
 "We haven't proven any cruelty," he said. "Usually if we arrest people on cruelty we put [the dogs] in our air-conditioned jail, but we haven't proven anything." 
 
 Aubel said Cheyenne and Yepa seemed at ease just before she left — Cheyenne darted off to chase a goose and Yepa chewed on some grass. Later she would see photos online of her two animals, alive with at least five others, in small, tiled room. 
 
 Other photos, released by the Sheriff's Office but deemed too graphic to be published by many media outlets, show the crammed carcasses of several other dogs, stored in a shed. 
 
 Workers told investigators that the dogs were last checked on Thursday night at about 11 p.m., and that by 5:30 a.m. Friday, a large number were discovered dead. Others were on the brink of death. 
 
 Sheriff's Office officials initially called the deaths a "tragic accident" that occurred after one of the dogs chewed through a power cord attached to an air-conditioning unit. The dogs died of heat exhaustion, they said. 
 
 But Arpaio on Monday acknowledged that the designation may have been premature, and promised a thorough investigation. 
 
 In particular, Arpaio said the owners' timeline didn't add up. 
 
 "How can you be healthy at 11 o'clock and dead at 5:30 in the morning? I think that's the key element," he said. 
 
 Aubel, who had visited the facility two months prior to her vacation, said she saw no red flags Saturday morning, and that everyone was acting normal. 
 
 Looking back, she said, it did occur to her that she didn't see one of the owners' dogs like she did last time. When she checked on the kennel before, she saw a yellow lab and a black lab. On Saturday, she only spotted the owner's black lab and a wolf hybrid. 
 
 Aubel said Hughes did mention to her that his family had just returned from vacation, but did not elaborate. 
 
 Sheriff's Office spokesman Chris Hegstrom said later that the owners flew back home Friday night, after hearing the news. 
 
 After the initial drop-off, Aubel realized she left her sunglasses there and called back. When she returned to the facility to pick them up, one of the owners' daughters greeted her with them in the front yard rather than letting Aubel come back inside. 
 
 "What really makes me upset is when I was there, the poor dogs that had passed away were right underneath my nose, and I didn't even know it," she said. "We would have postponed my vacation. They should not have accepted any more dogs." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1vaTdQX ||||| This dog was found dead at a Gilbert home next to 19 others. 
 
 Some pet owners burst into tears in front of a Gilbert boarding home Saturday night after learning the best friends had died. 
 
 While they were out of town, pet owners like Heather Bennett left their dogs with boarding home owner Todd Hughes and his family. Bennett said she expected Hughes to take care of her animals. 
 
 Instead, Bennett said Hughes called her on Friday telling her the dogs got loose and ran away. 
 
 "Where is our dog?" Bennett asked. "Is he alive? Just tell us where he's at." 
 
 A handful of other owners, many of them who remain out of town, received the same phone call. Another owner, who is on vacation in Florida, asked Linda Heller to help. 
 
 "We immediately went into dog-finding mode," Heller said. 
 
 Although several people launched a citywide search, no one found their dogs. Justin Butler was helping his family find their 6-year-old golden retriever, Koda. Saturday afternoon, Butler found out why no one could find him. 
 
 "Todd [Hughes] called everybody and said, 'Oh, your dogs got out and they're missing,'" Butler said. "They weren't missing. They're dead." 
 
 The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office discovered 20 dogs died Thursday night from heat exhaustion. Sheriff's Office spokesman Chris Hegstrom said Hughes wasn't home at the time of this incident. Instead, Hughes had other family members checking on the animals. 
 
 "One of the dogs chewed through an air conditioning wire overnight," Hegstrom said. "When the [Hughes family] checked on the dogs the next morning, many were already dead." 
 
 Hegstrom said there was a total of 28 dogs in the home. More than half of them died in a hot room. 
 
 Heller and Bennett met with the Hughes family Saturday night, demanding answers. 
 
 "He lied to the [dog's] owner who is on vacation," Heller said. 
 
 No criminal charges have been filed against Hughes or his family. Detectives said they believe what happened at the Hughes home was a tragic accident. 
 
 "It wasn't [a tragic accident]," Bennett said. "It was an act of negligence, completely." 
 
 According to Bennett, she was told one dog really did get loose and ran away. Her dark-haired husky-mix named Valor is still missing. Bennett spent Saturday night on horseback, searching for Valor in the Gilbert area. 
 
 Since there are currently no criminal charges against Hughes, some pet owners suggested the matter will be settled in civil court. 
 
 For more on this story and other stories around Arizona from this author, follow Shawn Kline on Facebook and Twitter. 
 
 Copyright 2014 CBS 5 (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved. ||||| Investigation into Gilbert dog deaths, 911 calls released Posted: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 7:29 PM EDT Updated: Thursday, June 26, 2014 12:44 AM EDT Posted:Updated: 
 
 Concern and confusion, that's what 911 calls revealed from people who left their dogs at a Gilbert boarding facility. 
 
 
 
 20 of the dogs died this weekend when caretakers say a dog chewed through an electrical cord which powered the air conditioning. 
 
 
 
 "I don't think you understand this, you idiot, how could you do this? All you have to do was watch a dog, you killed multiple dogs," said a caller. 
 
 
 
 Tense and emotional 911 calls were made outside of the Gilbert boarding house when many owners first discovered their dogs had died. 
 
 
 
 "I am trying to get my dogs now, and he won't give them to me," said another caller. 
 
 
 
 Other owners who were told their pets had run away also called in looking for help, "I was just curious if you had happened to run across or if someone called in a bunch of dogs missing," said a caller. 
 
 
 
 Meleisa Hughes explained her husbands lie about the dogs running away. "He panics, he told a lie, and when asked by the sheriff department he immediately corrected his mistake." 
 
 
 
 "If anyone of you has never told a lie in your entire life feel free to judge him on that," she said. 
 
 
 
 Jesus Cabrales lost his dog Sonny, but unlike many of the other dog owners who were first told about the deaths on Saturday he got a voicemail on Friday morning. 
 
 
 
 "Hey Jesus, this is Todd with Green Acre's, I need to talk to you as soon as you can," said Cabrales. 
 
 
 
 After Friday came the two talked. 
 
 
 
 "I'm sorry Jesus I have got some bad news, I think either your dog, or my dog chewed through the drywall, and one of them bit the wire which cut off the a/c, so they didn't have air all night, and they died of heat exhaustion," recalled Cabrales. 
 
 
 
 That Friday night at the Green Acre facility Jesus demanded to see where the accident happened. He never saw the room in the MCSO photos where investigators say the dogs were being kept. 
 
 
 
 "I just tell him straight up, are you lying to me, tell me the truth, what really happened? And he said that is what happened, and I'm sorry, that is what happened," he said. 
 
 
 
 Sonny also had wounds on his legs and paws, how and when those happened isn't clear. ||||| As the owners of 20 dogs wait for answers as to why their pets died at a Gilbert boarding service, Fox 10 News has learned that the son and daughter-in-law of US Senator Jeff Flake were tasked with caring for the dogs while the boarding house’s owners were out of town.It was originally believed there were 17 dogs, but Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says 20 dogs died at the facility.MCSO said it appears one of the dogs chewed through a wire that powered the air-conditioning in the section of the home where the dogs were kept. The owners told deputies the power went out sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. Owners of the deceased dogs claim they were not notified until Saturday morning.“I demanded. I got in the owners face,” said Valerie Collins who left her two dogs in the care of the Green Acre boarding house near Gilbert. “We went out of the front and he carried my Daisy who was lifeless. I prayed that they were still alive and [the facility's owner] just threw her at my feet like a piece of meat.”While Collins and her husband waited to claim their dogs, other dog owners began showing up.“We had no idea how many dogs we would find that day that were dead,” said Collins. “I hurt inside knowing that my dogs died a horrible death, and we just want to know what happened and we feel like this is crime."MCSO says the owners of the boarding facility were in Florida at the time of the accident and left their son and daughter in-law in charge. Through various sources, including owners of the deceased dogs, FOX 10 has been able to confirm Austin Flake, son of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, was supposed to be watching over the property with his wife when the accident happened.“A text that was sent to me from the owner said that his daughter and son-in-law would be caring for them and they would be back shortly,” said Collins, who also claims she saw Flake the day she picked up her dogs. “He was in the living room when my husband opened the door. He ran to the back of the house when my husband entered the house.”In a statement, US Senator Jeff Flake said, “I learned of this tragic accident yesterday. I can't imagine the devastating loss these families are experiencing. My heart goes out to the owners who lost their beloved pets."David Gillette, who is on vacation in California with his wife and two young children, lost two golden retrievers at the boarding house. He said one of the owners left a voicemail claiming their dog had run away.“We had a dog that was a digger and we didn't know about it,” said one of the owners in the voice mail provided to FOX 10. “He dug a hole and Sherman and Parker somehow got out of the hole. We are out looking for them right now…my wife, my girls are out looking for them.”Gillette’s dogs were found in a backyard shed with more than a dozen other dead dogs.“We were going to the beach yesterday and mother-in-law called and told us what happened,” said Gillette from Disneyland. “My son is asking me ‘Dad, why are you crying?’”On Saturday, an MCSO deputy told dog owners, “that something stupid happened I totally agree with you. That it is a crime? I do not agree with you.”
– Nothing seemed amiss when Snow Aubel dropped her two dogs off at a Gilbert, Ariz., kennel last Saturday morning. Just two hours later, however, police swarmed Green Acre, removing numerous dogs thought to have died sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. In total, 20 of the 28 dogs found at the kennel were dead, and though the sheriff's office initially described the deaths as "tragic accident" (it explained a dog chewed through an air-conditioning unit cord), it later said that designation was premature, the Arizona Republic reports. "How can you be healthy at 11 o'clock and dead at 5:30 in the morning? I think that's the key element," a sheriff said Monday. As for Aubel, she says owner Todd Hughes "never said anything about what was going on." Though her dogs were fine, others weren't so lucky. One owner who lost his dog tells Fox 10 the animal had wounds on his legs and paws. A family has since come forward to say they picked up their dog from the kennel weeks earlier to find he had a cut and swollen paw, was covered in paint, and had fur missing, AZFamily reports. As for the owners' initial story that the dogs ran away, owner Meliesa Hughes is heard on a hidden video acquired by Fox 10 explaining, "my husband panicked and made a bad decision, we did have one that ran off, that is true." The sheriff notes a helicopter has been searching for the missing dog, though there's no proof the dog did indeed escape.