Resident dog vs. family dog
What is the difference between a “resident dog” and a “family dog?”
Abuse, neglect, cruelty in Illinois:
December 2009: A Schaumburg mother who abused her pit bull so badly the 52-pound dog had to be euthanized avoided a prison term and instead was sentenced to 30 months of probation. But Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta, upon sentencing Jenell Land for felony animal cruelty, warned her that he intends “to keep you on a very, very short leash. If you violate these terms, you will go to the penitentiary.”
Land, 33, was convicted by a jury in October of aggravated cruelty to an animal for mistreating her pit bull, Carmello, by locking a 3.4-pound tow chain so tightly around its neck that the links became embedded in the dog’s flesh.
That triggered an infection that forced the dog to be euthanized in November 2008 when Land took the pet to a veterinarian, prosecutors said. Prosecutor Mike Andre contended that Land deserved a prison term for allowing the dog to suffer so much that the dog’s skin grew around the two-inch links on the chain. Andre noted that the dog couldn’t lift its head and had open sores on its neck when Land ultimately took Carmello to the vet.
“This dog suffered at the hands of this defendant,’’ Andre said. “It suffered under the defendant’s care for weeks and weeks and weeks.’’ Besides placing Land on probation, Fecarotta ordered her to undergo drug, alcohol and psychological evaluations.
August 2009: Chicago - Authorities have charged a Chicago man with aggravated cruelty to animals and animal torture for allegedly hurling his 17-year-old Labrador retriever off a third-floor porch earlier this month. The Chicago Police News Affairs office says the dog was a family pet. The man charged, 45-year-old Lawrence Juliano reportedly told police the dog was sick, but the family did not have enough money to have it euthanized. Animal crimes team officers arrested Juliano after he was positively identified as the person who threw the dog to its death on Aug. 15. He was charged with the two felonies.
Abused dog seized in raid
August 2009: Police broke up a Kankakee County dogfighting operation in Hopkins Park, leading to the arrests of several people, authorities said. Among those arrested was Ronald Patton, 50, of Chicago, who was charged with bringing a child — allegedly his 5-year-old daughter — to a dogfight. Deitrick Dunnigan, 28, of Harvey, was charged with felony dogfighting. Five others were charged with misdemeanors. About $12,000 was found in what was believed to be an “execution chamber” for dogs that would lose fights, authorities said. The chamber consisted of jumper cables connected to a battery, they said.
June 2009: Streamwood - A 20-year-old man who killed his dog was sentenced to a year in prison. Michael Makowski pleaded guilty to aggravated cruelty to an animal in Rolling Meadows branch court. Makowski was arrested in March after a relative found the family schnauzer with its throat slit and a bloody utility knife nearby. Makowski told authorities he hated the dog and killed it as a sacrifice to bring his mother home, prosecutors said. His mother has been receiving psychiatric treatment in the Elgin Mental Health Center since being charged with attacking a family member last year, authorities said.
January 2009: Oak Lawn - Hugo Fulgencio, 36, was cited for animal cruelty after a neighbor complained he left his dog outside in freezing tempatures. Fulgencio was cited with failure to provide food, water and shelter for the dog. The pit bull was removed from the residence and taken to the Chicago Ridge Animal Welfare League. The welfare league later returned the dog to Fulgencio after Oak Lawn police ordered the animal released.
December 2008: Southwest Side - A 47-year-old man was arrested and charged with cruelty to animals for leaving two dogs, one of which died, outside in the bitter cold. The dog that died, a Rottweiler, had suffered outside for three days before it succumbed.
June 2008: Chicago – An 18-year-old East Chicago man was arrested for pouring gasoline over a pit bull in Kosciusko Park and then setting the dog on fire. The dog died from its extensive burns. While free on bond in the animal cruelty case, he robbed a supermarket at gunpoint. He was sentenced to a total of 9 years in prison for both offenses.
May 2008: Park Forest - During a routine traffic stop, police observed a female pit bull dog inside the car with massive trauma to her body. The officers noted that both of the dog’s ears were missing and that the dog was “in extremely poor condition,” with deep lacerations on her body and legs. The driver claimed that he had been breeding her when she had been attacked by another dog. The owner turned the dog over to the police. The driver/owner was then released from the traffic stop pending further investigation. The veterinary staff at Forest South Animal Hospital determined the dog was not in heat and could not be bred. They concluded instead that her injuries were consistent with dog fighting.
January 2008: Robbins - A man who was keeping 15 pit bulls in a small, filthy trailer in a junkyard was arrested and charged with 15 counts of misdemeanor animal abuse and 15 counts of not providing dogs with adequate veterinary care, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
November 2007: Harvey - Police arrested a 36-year-old woman after a witness saw two men holding down a Rottweiler in a driveway and the woman trying to chop off the dog’s tail with a meat cleaver. Felony animal cruelty charges were pending against the woman, who was the owner of the dog. Police found the dog cowering under a car inside the garage with its tail hanging by a thread. The dog was taken to Chicago Ridge Animal Welfare League.
February 2007: Joliet - A Baptist minister and a friend were sentenced to a form of probation for using a sledgehammer to “euthanize” a pet pit bull terrier last spring in a wooded area near Naperville. Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, author of the Illinois Animal Torture Act, approved of terms of the plea agreement reached in Will County Circuit Court in the case against Robert S. O’Neill and Steven R. Jones.
O’Neill, 44, is a Baptist minister and engineer who recently relocated his family to Illinois from Texas. He and Jones, 42, lived at the time on Rosehall Lane in Aurora, although Jones has since moved to Naperville. Both men pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of violation of an animal owner’s duty, Glasgow spokesman Chuck Pelkie confirmed. Naperville police had originally charged them with aggravated cruelty to animals, a felony.
Police arrested Jones and O’Neill on June 3 in a wooded area on the Naperville-Aurora border. They discovered the men had used a sledgehammer to mortally injure Parker, the O’Neill family’s 2-year-old male pit bull terrier/mixed-breed dog. O’Neill and Jones told police they had decided to “put down” the dog because it had become increasingly aggressive toward other animals and children, police said last year. Parker survived the beating but was soon after euthanized at a local animal hospital due to the severity of his injuries.
Pelkie said Jones and O’Neill “knowingly failed to provide humane care and treatment for an animal – a pit bull dog – in that they failed to humanely euthanize the animal.” A judge sentenced the pair to two years of court supervision, a form of probation, and fined both men $500, Pelkie said. Each also was ordered to perform 250 hours of community service work in the field of animal care, he said.
January 2007: Joliet - A Crest Hill man and his daughter pleaded guilty to starving a dog to death in 2005. Will County Judge Robert Livas sentenced Mark A. Obidowica, 44, to one year in prison for aggravated cruelty to animals, a felony. The judge sentenced Nicole Obidowicz, 19, to a year of probation for cruelty to animals, a midemeanor. While Nicole Obidowicz is on probation, she can’t own any animals, the judge said. In early 2005, Mark Obidowicz bought Kira, a 4-month-old Siberian husky puppy, for his daughter. They kept the dog in a cage in the basement of their Crest Hill home. At one point, Nicole Obidowicz moved out of the home. Neither she nor her father fed the dog regularly, and the dog died about eight months later. The dog weighed 17 lbs. when Obidowicz bought her– she weighed 17 lbs., eight months later, when she died. A veterinarian who examined Kira’s body said that marks on her teeth indicated she desparately tried to escape the cage by chewing the bars. The father and daughter blamed each other for the dog’s death.
October 2006: Belleville - A young pit bull was rescued after a neighbor called police after witnessing the owner beating the dog with a shovel. The dog was found to have a broken hind leg femur, intestinal parasites, fleas and was living in poor conditions. When the residents of the home were questioned as to how the dog was hurt, they all gave conflicting stories: One said the dog was hit by a car, another blamed other dogs, also living in poor conditions in the yard, as being responsible for the young pit bulls injuries.
September 2006: St. Charles Township - Justin Wackerlin, 23, was sentenced to 2 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravaed cruelty to animals, amitting that he shot and killed three neighbors’ dogs; a pit bull, rottweiler and husky. According to prosecutors, Wackerlin used food to lure one neighbor’s two dogs from their pens and then shot them with a shotgun. After shooting the two dogs, Wackerlin took one dog and hung it on a picket-style fence. Wackerlin then went into another neighbor’s yard and shot, at close range, a third dog that was chained.
June 2006: Sangamon County - Jared Lieb, 20, was arrested after his pit bull died while muzzled and tied up on a third-floor apartment balcony on Seven Pines Road. Police say the dog was left tied on the balcony without water in the 90-degree heat, but the muzzle on the dog was so tight it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The manager of the apartment complex told an off-duty police officer that he had seen the dog foaming at the mouth and having difficulty breathing. The manager and police officer went to the apartment and knocked on the door several times but got no answer. When the manager opened the door, there were two people sitting inside. By the time the manager and police officer reached the dog, it was dead.
April 2006: An Aurora man was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty charges for allegedly cutting off the ear of his pit bull with a pair of scissors, according to Aurora police. Officers found Gregory Balano, 18, standing over a bloody pit bull that was chained to a tree. The dog, a female about 1 year old, was taken by Aurora Animal Control to a local animal hospital for treatment. The dog was expected to recover.
November 2005: Alton - Officials converged on a Milton area house to rescue an emaciated pit bull hooked to a thick, short chain next to open sewage. James Greer, assistant chief of Alton’s Animal Control Department said the dog “was on a 2-inch thick log chain with a Yale lock. She was very emaciated and had not had food or drink for a long time. She was in terrible shape. She had maybe one-and-a-half feet ot move at most, but I don’t believe she had that much room.” Greer said the black and white dog was sitting on her haunches when he arrived. “She had no room to do anything,” he said. “I see this stuff all the time, but every time you see it, it breaks your heart.” Greer said someone had complained to the city’s Building and Zoning Department about the poor condition of the front porch of the house. When a city inspector arrived to check out the complaint, he noticed the starving dog and called Animal Control.
People who fight dogs:
Dog Fighting is a Class 4 felony in Illinois. While possession of dogs for fighting is also a Class 4 felony , being a spectator at a dogfight is a Class A misdemeanor.
National Canine Research Council