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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)

An Atlanta area man is facing upgraded charges in connection with a fight he had with his wife two months ago in which he beat her with her dog, then killed the Pomeranian by snapping its neck, police said.

Emmanuel Alfredo Tadeo, 27, of Sandy Springs, was in the Fulton County jail Wednesday facing felony animal cruelty and other charges, Channel 2 Action News reported.

Police said the charges stemmed from a May 19 disturbance at the home of Tadeo and his wife,  Andrea Jill Armintrout, in their condominium on Roswell Road.

“The argument started over him blaming his wife for his misfortunes in life,” said Capt. Steve Rose, spokesman for the Sandy Springs Police Department. The man had been drinking heavily, he said.

“It is probably one of the worst cases of animal cruelty that we’ve ever seen,” Rose added.

Rose said the man had kicked and stomped on the dog and at one point he swung the animal at his wife, striking her.

Tadeo initially was charged with battery and misdemeanor cruelty to animals, according to Fulton County jail records. He was released June 14 after posting $5,000 bond.

This week, prosecutors upgraded the charges to aggravated assault, aggravated battery, battery and two counts of cruelty to animals.

Armintrout was also arrested Friday and charged with one count of  obstruction, a misdemeanor. She was being held on $500 bond Wednesday.

A dog skull unearthed in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia is believed to be 33,000 years old.

If so, it represents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication,  according to a recent study in the online journal PloS One.

The Siberian skull, along with equally ancient dog remains found in a cave in Belgium, indicate domestic dogs may have come from more than one ancestor, more than one area, and more than one era — contrary to popular scientific belief.

Researchers say the skull’s shortened snout — not as long and narrow as that of a wolf — is evidence the creature it came from was domesticated.

“Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth,” said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona’s Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and co-author of the study. “What’s interesting is that it doesn’t appear to be an ancestor of modern dogs.”

The Siberian skull predates the last great ice age, and Hodgins believes neither the Belgian nor the Siberian lineages survived the severe conditions.

Hodgins suspects even pre-ice age dogs were pets and helpers, as opposed to food sources.

“The dogs are not necessarily providing products or meat. They are probably providing protection, companionship and perhaps helping on the hunt. And it’s really interesting that this appears to have happened first out of all human relationships with animals.”

(Photos by Nikolai D. Ovodov)

A DeKalb County police officer responding to a domestic dispute shot and killed a family’s dog Tuesday night.

That happens far too often, but this time there’s an even sadder twist — he was at the wrong address.

The officer went to Bobbie Currie’s home on Silva Court around 9 p.m. in response to a domestic dispute call that possibly involved an armed person, Atlanta’s Channel 2 Action News reported.

When the family’s German shepherd lunged at the officer, he shot and killed the dog, even though it was on a chain in the garage. He then pointed his gun at Currie’s husband, Anthony.

“I said, ‘Why you shoot my dog?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ll blow your brains out,’” Anthony Currie said.

A DeKalb police supervisor sent to the scene said the officer made an error.

“Subsequent investigation determined that the actual address that he was looking for was actually across the street,” DeKalb police Lt. Dane Cunningham said.

Police found an 8-month-old puppy taped to the side of a refrigerator in a Boulder, Colorado home Tuesday morning, the apparent subect and victim of a domestic dispute between his owner and his girlfriend.

Abby Toll, 20, was arrested on suspicion of felony animal cruelty after telling police she taped the puppy, a shiba inu named Rex, to the fridge because she was angry at her boyfriend for not getting rid of his pet after it had bitten her, the Colorado Daily reported.

“There’s a dog taped to the fridge,” she reportedly told an officer who responded to a call about a domestic incident at the apartment in the 2900 block of East Aurora Avenue around 5 a.m. Tuesday. “I know this looks bad. We were going to get rid of him anyway. We usually don’t do this.”

The dog’s feet, snout and tail were bound in clear packing tape, a plastic bag and elastic hair ties, and he was taped to the side of the refrigerator with more packing tape. He was taken to  the Humane Society of Boulder Valley for safekeeping.

CEO Lisa Pedersen said Tuesday that Rex was doing fine and the Humane Society would take care of him until the legal case is resolved, at which time he may be put up for adoption.

Toll, a University of Colorado sophomore majoring in environmental design, faces felony charges of animal cruelty and domestic violence. She was being held at Boulder County Jail in lieu of a $12,500 bond.

Police said Toll slapped her boyfriend, 21-year-old Bryan Beck, in the face and threw several objects at him after taping the dog to the fridge.

Beck, who has been dating Toll for about a year, returned to his apartment Monday evening to find dog poop and urine throughout. Toll told Beck to get rid of Rex, saying he bit her a few days earlier. The couple argued, but made up. The next morning, Toll tried to apply cream to an old wound on Rex and he growled and bared his teeth at her. Upset, she decided to get back at her boyfriend and “teach the dog a lesson.”

When Beck saw the dog, he told Toll: “Take him down. You are so sick.” To which she replied: “No, you are sick for not caring enough about me to get rid of the dog.” A fight ensued, and the dog remained taped to the fridge for about 20 minutes, until police arrived in response to someone reporting the couple’s yells.

Toll’s Chihuahua, Peanut, was also taken to the Humane Society after the couple’s arrest.

(Photo: Police mug shot, via Colorado Daily)

The pure Australian dingo could be extinct within twenty years, and domestic and feral dogs are to blame, an Australian scientist says.

Ricky Spencer of the native and pest animal unit of the University of Western Sydney says only 15 to 20 per cent of all dingoes in southeast Australia and southeast Queensland remain “pure”, with the rest being hybrids.

Speaking at the Ecological Society of Australia’s annual conference in Sydney this week, Spencer said domestic and feral dogs were destroying the native animal, according to a report in The Australian.

“The domestic dogs are actually mixing with the dingoes. I guess you’d call it a form of genetic pollution to some degree (because) they’re originated from European settlement,” he said after the conference.

“In some parts of Australia they are either very close to gone or at least will be in the next twenty years or so,” he added.

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