ohmidog!

A cat hacked to pieces, a terrier beaten by youths with a cricket bat and a dog whose owner inserted a caribiner through its neck all made the Royal New Zealand SPCA’s 2012 “List of Shame.”

The list of inhumane acts toward animals is compiled annually by the SPCA and shared with the public — partly to increase public awareness, and partly as a warning.

“Violence towards animals both co-occurs and is a predictor of violence towards humans,” said Robyn Kippenberger, national chief executive of the Royal New Zealand SPCA.

“The sheer level of violence meted out on animals by some of the perpetrators in the cases in this year’s List of Shame is shocking, and underlying of wider issues in New Zealand.”

Incidents that made this year’s list included a tethered goat stabbed to death in Greymouth, a dog left to starve on the side of a road, and “a  family cat deliberately cut up in Timaru.”

The lists recounts 30 acts of abuse and neglect, and their outcomes.

In Rotorua, a dog owner put a metal caribiner, such as used in climbing, through the skin of his Shar Pei mix’s neck and used it to connect a leash. An infection resulted and the dog had to be euthanized. The owner was prosecuted, fined and banned from owning a dog for a year.

In Te Atatu, Auckland a 3 year old cat was found outside an archery club with an arrow in his head. Further investigation showed he’d also been shot with pellets. The SPCA is still investigating.

In Waitara, a man trapped cats in his backyard, then put them in sacks and drowned them. He was banned from owning an animal for five years.

In July, two men who were prosecuted for shooting 33 dogs and puppies during a feud between neighbors in Wellsford, received  sentences of 6 months home detention and 6 months community detention, 300 hours community work and reparation.

“The SPCA’s work is made less effective by the low level of sentencing being awarded in animal welfare cases,” Kippenberger said. “ The sentencing in most of these cases is appallingly inadequate, and is no way indicative of the range of penalties that can be handed down under the Animal Welfare Amendment Act.”

“Considering the close links between violence towards humans and animal cruelty, courts should be recognising these crimes as significant in a continuum of violent behaviour. If these crimes are not punished significantly, an opportunity is lost to send a message that no violence is acceptable.”

The Royal New Zealand SPCA, in partnership with Women’s Refuge, recently released a study into the  link between animal cruelty and domestic and family violence in New Zealand.

In the study, “Pets as Pawns,” 50 per cent of women interviewed had witnessed animal cruelty as part of their experience of domestic violence and 25 per cent said their children had witnessed violence against animals.

(Photo: One of the 33 dogs shot in Wellsford; New Zealand Herald)

Police suspected a black mixed breed dog they were calling Lady — found last week with her eyes dangling out of her sockets in a parking lot in Bucks County, Pa. — had been struck with a baseball bat.

Since then – thanks to encountering some kinder humans — Lady has received veterinary care, a temporary home from a police dispatcher who overheard the call, and, this week, a reunion with the family whose home she escaped from.

Now, the 7-year-old dog who likely will never see again is being called by her real name again — Dusk.

“We’re happy to have her back,” Marie Waligorski told Phillyburbs.com. “We never expected to get her back this way.”

Dusk escaped from the family’s fence yard four days before she was found in a parking lot, just a few hundred feet from the family’s home in Bristol Township.

The citizen who found her called police Friday morning, and Jessica Finnell, a Bucks County emergency dispatcher listened in.

The caller said he found a dog with both eyes hanging out of the sockets. When he went on to say the dog was alive, Finnell contacted the animal control officer retrieving the dog and urged him not to let her be put down. And she offered to take the dog into her home in Warminster.

At CARES, an animal clinic in Middletown, a veterinarian put Lady’s eyes back into their sockets, but her left eyelid had to be heavily stitched to keep the damaged eye from falling out again. The vet found multiple skull fractures, but no injuries that would suggest she’d been hit by a car. Finnell was told  it’s likely someone hit Lady in the head with a bat.

After Lady received medical treatment, Finnell took her home for the weekend.

“She is phenomenal,” she said Monday night. “She is amazing. She is unbelievable. I totally fell in love with her.”

Finnell also started a ChipIn fund to cover Lady’s ongoing medical care, which has raised close to $3,000.

Finnell brought the dog back to the veterinary clinic yesterday, where she was reunited with her family. Dusk belongs to Waligorski’s son, William Schilling, who adopted her as a puppy when living in Tennessee.

“She was excited, tail-wagging. She seems happy that they were there,” said Finnell, a single mother of two. “I’m happy for her. I miss her like crazy, but I’m happy she is back in her home and can have some of her normal life back.”

(Photo: Lady/Dusk and Finnell; by Rick Kintzel / Phillyburbs.com)

An elementary school teacher called police and confessed to beating his dog to death after the Lab-Chow mix soiled himself, authorities said.

“Why did I do this? I’m an animal,” the fourth grade teacher reportedly told officers.

Derek Fierro, a teacher at Eugene Field Elementary School in Rogers Park, was ordered held in lieu of $200,000 bail Saturday. He faces a felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals and was ordered by a judge to not possess or have contact with any animals.

About 3 a.m. on Friday, Fierro, 25, called police and told them he had beaten his dog to death at his home in Lake View, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

When police arrived, he handed officers his car keys and they found the dog Fierro adopted, named Doc, in his trunk, according to court documents.

Police said Fierro told them he beat the dog with his fists after he returned home and found that the dog had defecated on himself.

“I got home and he had eaten through every piece of paper,” Fierro told officers. “He (defecated on) himself, so I put him in a tub. I was gonna give him a bath, and he didn’t want to get in the bath and I got mad.”

(Photo: Chicago Canine Rescue Foundation)

Remember this video, from a story we told you about back in October? On his balcony in Lincolnshire, a British man was videotaped as he beat his dog. After the video was posted on Facebook, an angry mob formed outside his house.

The man survived the mob, and the dog survived the man.

The Staffordshire bull terrier was seized by authorities, and turned out to be blind and deaf, making the behavior of his owner, Jonathan Bloomfield, 37, all the more repugnant.

Bloomfield avoided a prison sentence, but magistrates in Grimsby banned him from having a dog for 15 years.

Whatever happened to the dog? A lot, and it’s all good.

Butch, as he was previously known, was taken in by the RSPCA, where he was renamed Dodger. The RSPCA, after realizing he was deaf and almost totally blind, contacted specialists at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket to see if there was any chance that the 18-month-old dog’s sight could be restored.

“Dodger is the most adorable dog,” Claudia Hartley, the AHT’s head of small animal ophthalmology explained. “As soon as he arrived I fell in love with him and it wasn’t long before he’d work his charm on the rest of the vets and nurses here.”

Both his deafness and his blindness are believed to be congential. Dodger was apparently born with cataracts — something that, unlike his deafness, could be repaired. The AHT’s vets performed cataract surgery on Dodger’s right eye, with good results.

Dodger returned to the AHT last month to have his left-eye operated on and initial signs are very good, according to the East Anglian Daily Times.

The RSPCA has started the process of looking for a new home for Dodger.

“Although Dodger can now see, he is still completely deaf, and he’ll need a special owner who can understand his very specific needs,” said Kirstyn Gaunt, deputy manager at the RSPCA Block Fen Animal Centre, where he is now housed.  “He has started to take on some basic sign language and he is a fast learner.”

Given the happy ending, we’ll end this post with a happier video:

A burglar broke into a San Francisco home, beat the two adult dogs living there, stole a litter of puppies and then apparently called the owner, offering to sell the pups back.

Last week, police said, someone broke into a house in the 100 block of Cameron Way in the Bayview neighborhood and ransacked it, stealing a laptop computer, a television and all four puppies.

During the burglary, the parents of the puppies were badly beaten, apparently with some kind of blunt object, according to the San Francisco Examiner.

The day after the burglary, someone contacted the dogs’ owner, offering to sell the puppies back for $200. The woman told police she didn’t have the money to do so.

The four-week-old puppies are tan and black-colored miniature Doberman Pinscher and Beagle mixes, and were still nursing, according to police.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Sgt. Neil Cunningham of Bayview Station at (415) 671-2300 or the station’s anonymous tip line at (415) 822-8147.

Toby, an autistic girl’s dog that was reported stolen last week, was found dead Sunday night.

The body of the dog – trained to help Kelly Noland’s daughter, Alle, 9, stay safe — was dumped in the family’s yard in Moncks Corner, S.C.

“They killed our dog and dropped it off in our yard,” Kelly Noland told the Charleston Post and Courier. “He had been hit in the face with a bat. He was still warm.”

Toby, a 3-year-old black and white American bull terrier, was taken from the family’s front yard last Tuesday.

Neighborhood children waiting for the morning school bus said they saw a blond woman in a black Dodge stop, snatch the dog and drive off, according to a Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office report.

“It’s just been a nightmare. Devastating, heartbreaking,” Noland said. “We want to know why someone would target our animal and target our family and be so heartless.”

The family got Toby as a puppy. He wasn’t professionally trained to be a service dog for Alle — the family says it can’t afford one of those — but he watched after her and made sure she stayed safe, the family said.

Noland thanked those who helped look for the dog, and those who have helped since his death, including a local crematory that offered its services for free.

Noland said the family has no plans to get another dog in the near future. “It’s just too much heartache,” she said.

(Top photo: Kelly Noland holds Toby’s collar as she sits with daughter, Alle; by Grace Beahm / Charleston Post and Courier)

Lucy, a dog saved from the streets of Bogota — but not until after her owner beat her beyond recognition — is now in the U.S. and in the process of finding a new home.

And if you think there are only a few people who would find beauty in her unaligned face, think again.

Everyone, it seems, loves Lucy.

Stray from the Heart, a New York City rescue, says it has been inundated with inquiries from people seeking to adopt Lucy, now in a foster home — so many that they’ve removed her profile from their website as they sort through applicants.

Lucy was beaten by her former owner so badly that her nose and jaw were broken, according to Stray from the Heart. Both have healed, but they never set properly, leaving her jaw and snout slightly askew.

Her abuser also pulled out some of her teeth, to keep her from fighting with the many male dogs she was bred with.

Somehow, she escaped and was found living on the streets, alone, emaciated and pregnant. She was picked by a good samaritan and taken to a veterinarian who discovered her uterus was twisted. The vet had to decided between saving the mother or the babies, and opted to save Lucy,  Stray from the Heart says.

It was believed to have been the three-and-a-half-year-old dog’s fifth or sixth pregnancy.

After a few months in foster care in Bogota, Lucy was brought to the U.S., and was boarded in Connecticut until foster care could be secured.

Stray from the Heart is now picking a permanent home from the many applicants who got in touch after her photos appeared on the rescue’s website and Facebook page.

(Photos:  From the Facebook page of Stray from the Heart)

Unwanted and tossed out of her Chicago home a few days ago, Isis, an abused shepherd terrier mix, is now in demand.

The Chicago Tribune reports that at least a dozen callers have made inquiries to the city’s office of Animal Care & Control about fostering or adopting her.

The dog’s owners kicked her out Saturday because they were moving to a new apartment that didn’t allow pets.

But Isis ended up back at the family’s new apartment in East Garfield Park, two blocks away from their old one, scratching at the door.

Neighbors say the shepherd terrier mix paced the sidewalk outside of the new home, howling and barking in the cold for hours. Police said, during that time, several youths tried to beat the dog with broomsticks and baseball bats.

Police charged the dog’s owner, Lashon Johnson, who told officers she no longer wanted the dog, with misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Animal control officials said Isis did not suffer life-threatening injuries. While uncertain when she would become available for adoption, they pointed out that there are dozens of other dogs in the shelter in need of homes.

Luttrell with Rigby

Two men will be sentenced in February for killing former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s service dog.

One entered a guilty plea to the charges this week, and a second was found guilty yesterday by a jury in Walker County, Texas, according to the Huntsville Item.

Luttrell took the stand Thursday, with his new service dog, Rigby, at his side. He testified he was so angry the night his dog, DASY, was killed by gunfire from a passing car that, while chasing the car down, he pulled his pistol.  

“I wanted to take a shot at the driver, but I figured if I missed and shot out the back window, I would not be able to catch them,” Luttrell said.

DASY — an acronym for Luttrell’s fellow Navy SEALs that were slain in the line of duty — was shot on April 1, 2009. A Labrador retriever, she was given to him by friends to help him cope with emotional and physical injuries sustained in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Luttrell was the lone survivor of a 2005 mission in which his SEAL team was pinned down in a firefight with Taliban forces in Afghanistan. He was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism in 2006.

He testified in court Tursday that he let DASY out and was watching television when he heard a gunshot and, grabbing his gun, went to see what had happened.

“I saw my dog in a ditch and two men standing outside the car. I could hear them laughing,” said Luttrell who would go on to chase the car through Walker, San Jacinto and Polk counties before a patrol officer with the Onalaska Police Department pulled it over.

According to testimony in the case, one occupant of the car, after the dog was shot, got out and kicked and beat the animal with a bat.

“(Alfonso Hernandez) got out and kicked and beat that dog and thought it was funny. They thought it was just another dog,” Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Stroud during closing arguments. “To Marcus Luttrell it was so much more. It was a symbol he carried around for what happened to him. He was reminded of the people it was named after. To Marcus Luttrell that was just not another dog.”

Alfonso Hernandez was found guilty of cruelty to non-livestock animals, which carries a sentence of up to two years in a state facility and a $10,000 fine.

Two days earlier, Michael Edmonds pleaded guilty to the same charge and admitted he was the one who fired the shot that killed DASY.

Sentencing is expected to take place in February.

The trial of Andrew David Thompson, intially accused of killing 13 Italian greyhounds — now officially charged with only six of those deaths – has been indefinitely postponed.

Judge Paula Manderfield quashed seven of the 13 counts of animal killing and torture against the former Michigan State University medical student on Wednesday, ruling they were based on hearsay testimony.

As a result, prosecutors are regrouping, and the Dec. 5 start date for his trial is up in the air.

The evidence in question regards the number of puppies Thompson owned while living in one of the two residences where he was alleged to have killed the dogs.

Ingham County Animal Cruelty Investigator Jodi LeBombard interviewed Thompson’s former roommate, who told her he knew of seven dogs Thompson had owned while they shared a residence. LeBombard recounted what the roommate said in an earlier hearing.

In a pre-trial motion, Thompson’s attorney argued that — since the roommate was out of town and didn’t appear in court — LeBombard’s testimony was hearsay and shouldn’t have been deemed inadmissable.

Judge Manderfield concurred and quashed seven of the 13 counts Thompson faced.

As of Wednesday evening, Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings had not decided whether to appeal the ruling or send the counts back to district court so the roommate can testify, the State News reported.

(Photo: Dogbreedinfo.com)