Danielle Blankenship investigated for possibly killing her cat by blowing heroin smoke at it

Big pic below.

A toxicology post-mortem should answer that question -- and determine whether or not Danielle Blankenship, 21, should be charged with felony animal cruelty after allegedly blowing heroin smoke in Muffin's face.

According to the Boulder Daily Camera, Boulder Police responded on July 5 to a call from Blankenship's boyfriend, who claimed she'd hit him in the face. But the man turned out to be in better shape than Muffin, who was found laying at the bottom of the residence's stairs.

When Muffin didn't respond, and showed signs of possibly having been poisoned, the cops alerted animal control. Medical care seemed to help at first, but on Tuesday evening, the cat died.

Why? Blankenship had been smoking heroin and blew smoke in the cat's face, the boyfriend told cops.

Blankenship denies using heroin at all, let alone giving Muffin a blast of secondhand smoke. Nonetheless, she's been accused of misdemeanor animal cruelty in addition to third-degree assault -- and if a necropsy shows heroin in the cat's system, the charge could be upped to felony animal cruelty.

Advice to other pets out there: Just say no to heroin -- because the last thing you need is a monkey on your back.

Update, 1:49 p.m. August 16: The Boulder District Attorney's Office has confirmed that animal cruelty charges against Danielle Blankenship have been dropped because no heroin turned up in her cat's necropsy. Get the details in "Danielle Blankenship: Charge for killing cat by blowing heroin smoke in its face dropped."

Here's a larger version of Blankenship's mug shot.

Danielle Blankenship.