Resident dog vs. family dog
What is the difference between a “resident dog” and a “family dog?”
Abuse, neglect, cruelty in Texas:
October 2009: Waco – An FBI agent who shot and killed his Lorena neighbor’s 3-pound Chihuahua in 2008 is no longer employed with the FBI, an agency spokesman confirmed. Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, would not say if Leslie Ledger, an FBI agent formerly stationed in Waco, resigned, retired or was fired. Ledger, 41, was placed on deferred probation for two years and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service in July after pleading no contest to state jail felony animal-cruelty charges in Waco’s 54th State District Court.
He shot and killed the tiny dog, named Sassy, with a pellet rifle as the dog explored the neighborhood in front of his rural home on Estes Road in Lorena. The dog belonged to a young girl whose family lives down the street from Ledger. He initially lied to sheriff’s office investigators about the dog’s death but later told deputies he shot the animal, according to court records.
September 2009: San Antonio – A 14-year-old is being investigated for arson after his family’s 2-year-old English bulldog suffered third-degree burns across its back, stomach and genitals. Officials with the city’s Animal Care Services said the boy allegedly made a Molotov cocktail out of a perfume bottle, but it was unclear how the bulldog was burned.
“We are trying to reconcile the story the teenage boy is giving us and the story the evidence is giving us,” said Lisa Norwood, spokeswoman for Animal Care Services. The dog was burned on Sept. 12th and stood for the first time two days later, she said. It is in severe pain, but doing better and its veterinarian is hopeful he will recover, Norwood said.
The boy’s mother initially wanted to keep the dog, which was named Capone. But after Animal Care Services told her the bill for the dog’s treatment was about $4,000 and could become more expensive, she opted to sign the dog over to them. The dog has been renamed Churchill. If it recovers it will be put up for adoption, Norwood said. Meanwhile, arson investigators continue their work on the case.
September 2009: Beaumont – In the second violent animal cruelty case reported to Beaumont police in a week, a 8 lb. poodle , Bullett, was deliberately killed by a man who grabbed the little dog and threw him to two other dogs. A witness told police that a man took the poodle and tossed him to two pit bulls chained at a residence at the corner of Johnson and Bethlehem streets, Beaumont Police Officer Crystal Holmes said. The witness said the man watched as the pit bulls attacked, Holmes said. Juston Lee Bruno, 30, of Beaumont was arrested shortly after the attack and charged with state jail felony animal cruelty, according to police reports. If convicted, he faces between 180 days and two years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine.
June 2009: Austin – The dog’s throat was cut, her paws were bound with rope, and her face had been set on fire. She was dead, lay wrapped in plastic and dumped unceremoniously next to a trash receptacle when Vickie McCauley stumbled upon her. “This is torture worse than I’ve ever seen in my life,” said McCauley. ”
McCauley called 311 as soon as she and her colleagues discovered the dog near the Dumpster at her work. But, she said that when the City came to investigate, they didn’t even open the bag before determining the dog’s owner had dumped it there once the dog died because they had nowhere else to put it.
That is when McCauley decided to do a little digging herself. “I wasn’t going to leave it,” she said. “Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to leave it until I investigated.” McCauley returned to the scene and unwrapped the bags. “It took me a few tries to get all of that off of her,” she said, pointing to the heavy plastic bags and blanket that had been wrapped around the Pit Bull. “And, then I positioned her to where you can tell she had been spliced, because blood went everywhere.” The sight made McCauley vomit. “If I think about what they did to her and she was alive,” she said. “It makes me cry because it makes me so sad.”
According the the Austin Police Department, there have been 122 cases of reported animal cruelty in Austin since Jan. 1, 2008. Just in 2009, there have been 23 cases so far.
June 2009: El Paso - An American pit bull lab puppy was brought to the Animal Rescue League because a woman’s family says they didn’t want him anymore. When the staff at the kennel saw his wounds they immediately called the Sheriff’s Office.
Kennel staff named him Thumper. He’s only 5 months old. But for the last three months of his life he’s been in pain. “See this white thing, right here? That’s his wind pipe,” said Dr. Nancy Harvey from the Country Club Animal Clinic.
Thumper had a four-inch-long laceration around his neck. Harvey said the collar with spikes that he was wearing was about three sizes too small for him.
Sheriff’s officials said that when the deputies showed up to the dog owner’s home she told them she knew why they were there. Elva Ortega, 48, was charged with cruelty to animals. Her bond was set at $10,000.
Now, Thumper is recovering, but still needs medical attention. Dr. Harvey said it’s a good thing she treated him when she did. “If he didn’t die from infection, it could have eventually worn through the wind pipe,” said Harvey.
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Burned dog before she was euthanized
April 2009: Dallas – This pit bull terrier was one of two euthanized after they were set on fire and horribly burned. Witnesses saw two dogs on fire running from the intersection of Sunburst and Alps drives, located about a mile west of Balch Springs, police said. Witnesses called police and attempted to help the dogs.
Two teenage boys, 15 and 17, were standing at the corner, but fled when witnesses tried to confront them, police said. Investigators went to the teens’ home on Sunburst and found six other pit bulls, which were later placed in the custody of animal control.
“The two dogs were in agonizing pain,” said Jonnie England, director of animal advocacy for the Metroplex Animal Coalition, who saw the dogs shortly before they were euthanized. “The little female dog, who was either pregnant or nursing, looked worse than Mercy. Her face was practically burned off.”
Mercy was a 10-month-old pit bull mix that was stabbed, doused in gasoline, and set on fire in 2006. The pup’s injuries were so extensive, workers at the Operation Kindness Animal Shelter in Carrollton thought she may have been dragged by a car.
Dallas police arrested 21-year-old Deshann Quatrail Brown, and in September 2007, Brown was sentenced to four years in prison for animal cruelty.
February 2009: McAllen — After an dog owner’s angry boyfriend doused her Pomeranian puppy with fuel and set it on fire, the frantic dog ran around the house, setting the house ablaze, and burning both the owner and her boyfriend, officials said. When authorities arrived, the man was gone. They later caught up with him at McAllen Medical Center, where he was being treated for severe burns. He and his girlfriend were transferred to a San Antonio hospital.
The puppy survived and has found a home.
November 2008: – At the Criminal Justice Center in downtown Houston justice maybe swift, but public reaction has been even swifter. Very positive reaction from the public. A lot of folks are calling and saying, ‘thank you,’” said Assistant Harris County D.A. Belinda Smith. Smith is talking about reaction to the year-and-a-half long investigation into the seedy world of top tier dog fighting. “… It is the Saturday night poker game for hard core criminals. This is their past time,” said a sergeant with the DP Criminal Intelligence Service.
The effort was called “Operation Dead Game.” The Texas Department of Public Safety and the USDA pulled off the sting, which is being called the largest undercover investigation of its kind in U.S. history. The feds say that as many as 85 felony dogfighting charges were filed across the state. Half of those charges were made in Harris County. The D.A.’s office says it will seek the maximum punishment.
Several dogs were taken into custody at raids across the Houston area. “Up to two years in jail for those that were actually engaging dogs in dogfighting. For the spectators it’s up to a year in jail,” said Smith. The first defendants in the case will begin making court appearances. Among the defendants is Donald Woods. He faces cocaine and marijuana charges, in addition to dogfighting.
Authorities say that another suspect, Ronald Munerlyn, is no stranger to Harris County courts. Munerlyn was convicted of dogfighting one year ago.
“The jury in that case last year, in November of 2007, put him on two years probation. He was caught spectating at one of these dog fights,” said Smith.
Smith said the dogs were the true innocent victims. She said that nearly 200 canines were seized last week, 87 in Harris County. “These are not pets. They were staked to the ground 24, 7. They had no socialization, and the only time they got away from that environment was to go fight,” said Smith.
A judge awarded custody of the dogs seized in Harris County to the county health department. The dogs are being kept at a secure location where each is being evaluated for possible adoption. But in all likelihood, they will have to be euthanized.
May 2008: Beaumont - Animal control officers responded to a neighbor’s call about an animal in pain and found a mixed breed dog in extreme distress behind a home on Park Street. The too-tight collar, along with months of neglect, had caused the collar to erode away the skin and cause extreme pain and infection. The owner of the dog claims it was not his responsiblity to care for the dog as the dog belonged to his daughter. However, his daughter was 5-years old.
December 2007: Anderson County - Sheriff’s deputies seized a pit bull from a residence in southern Anderson County on charges that the animal was being mistreated. Anderson County deputy Dan Watkins had received complaints that the dog was chained on too short of a chain and not being cared for, which prompted Watkins to check on the animal several times over the past week. No one was home at the residence, and the dog appeared to be emaciated, tethered on a thick chain and without shelter. The dog looked to be in pretty bad shape, and Watkins went to Judge Thomas for a seizure warrant.
November 2007: Beaumont – For the third time this year, someone threw a small dog into a yard with a pit bull.
A 22-year-old Beaumont man was walking down the street when a Shih tzu-mix puppy “attacked him” and tore his shorts. In retaliation, the man took the puppy and threw it in a yard with a pit bull. The puppy was rescued by the mother of the man who threw the dog in yard. The puppy was treated for an injury to his hind leg and was returned to his owner.
In July, a 14-year-old mentally handicapped boy threw a puppy in a yard containing two pit bulls. The puppy was attacked, but did not receive life-threatening injuries.
Also in July, several children under the age of eight, threw a small dog into a yard with a pit bull. Although the children tried to provoke the pit bull into attacking the smaller dog, the pit bull did not react and the small dog was uninjured.
November 2007: San Antonio - A woman found a dog badly injured and bleeding on the ground at a San Antonio flea market. Vets say it was hit in the head with a hammer or a bat. Cheryl Wildenstein, director of the Animal Friends Shelter, took the dog in. Wildenstein said animal abuse, like this case, is a problem that is growing in severity and frequency in San Antonio. “In the last six months I’ve seen some of the worst cases of animal abuse I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been working with animals for the last 12 years,” said Wildenstein. The dog found at the flea market was treated and would be put up for adoption when she recovers. “She’s a great dog – after what she’s been through she’s still giving kisses and wagging her tail,” said Wildenstein.
June 2007: Bastrop County - Four months after concerned residents first warned Bastrop County Animal Control about emaciated dogs chained in the front yard of a Bastrop house, officers last week seized eight surviving dogs and four dead ones. Three puppies, two male dogs and one female dog were recovering at the Animal Shelter. Antother puppy died soon after it was seized, and a female dog–the mother of the puppies–was euthanized shortly after arriving at the shelter because of her poor condition. Bastrop County resident L. Jackson said she first notice the dogs, pit bull mixes, chained outside the house in late January. By March there were 13 dogs outside the house, some tied up with only a foot of chain and no food, water or shelter, Jackson said. Several of the puppies were locked in crates set in the full sun without food or water. Jackson’s sister K. Farbo, photographed the dogs and sent affidavits outlining what they saw to animal control. The dogs were fastened with heavy chains with padlocks around their necks. Animal control did not seize the dogs until June. At that time Justice of the Peace Bill Weddle said the case “appears to be among the worst he has seen.”
December 2006: Lufkin - Calling it the “worst case of child abuse” he had seen in over 30 years, State District Judge David Wilson sentenced Bennedetha Buckjune to 75 years in prison. In August, a jury had found Buckjune guilty of a total of 13 felony counts, for starving, brutally beating and sexually abusing her two stepdaughters. In addition to the physical abuse, Buckjune had forced her 11-year-old stepdaughter to perform sex on two young boys who lived in the apartment next door. She also forced her stepdaughter to have oral sex with the “family” pit bulls.
April 2006: Dallas - Deshawn Brown, 22, stabbed, doused his pit bull in an accelerant and set her on fire because he was angry that “she would not breed.” The pit bull, Mercy, died 10 days later. In November 2007, Brown was convicted of animal cruelty and sentenced to four years in prison.
April 2006: Shelby County- Man Accused Of Eating His Dog Alive—”Look at that ear. Do you see that? I mean, it is chewed to smithereens,” says Shelby County Texas District Attorney Linda Kay Russell. Russell commented on graphic pictures showing a pit bull puppy who was eaten alive by his owner as she prepared to prosecute the dog’s owner.
“This is actually called torture to an animal, and that is why we are doing it,” says Russell.
Forty-nine year old Reggie Paul Fountain stands accused of eating his dog alive. “He chewed that and ate it, he had blood all over his face, he had blood on his chest, he was in his underwear walking down the street talking to himself and the dog,” says Russell.
Veterinarian Robert Hughes says the pit bull puppy looked like it had been in a dog fight when it arrived at his clinic. “We anesthetized the dog and we surgically evened out the edges. We did something similar to an ear crop,” says Doctor Hughes.
“His excuse, which I don’t care what his excuse was, was that he was on PCP and cocaine,” says Russell.
Russell says four police officers had to restrain the man so that they could remove the dog from his hands. She says she will now prosecute the case to the fullest, and leave the penalty in the hands of a jury.
“I will not offer this man probation. I will take it to a jury trial and if the citizens of Shelby County want to give him probation they can, but I will not offer that,” says Russell.
January 2006: Parker County - An 11-year-old girl found the gruesome remains of a stray dog that she had befriended. The dog recently given birth to a litter of puppies. The girl found the dog beheaded with her belly sliced open in a neighbor’s front yard. Her neighbor, Ricky Moore, 20, was arrested after he admitted that he killed and beheaded the dog. Police commented that the way Moore had killed the dog was extremely violent, as the dog was decapitated with a sword and the sword was stuck through the skull and then impaled into the ground. Animal Control took the dog’s 6 puppies to the Weatherford Shelter and 3 of the pups were adopted immediately. Moore was released on bond.
April 2005: Huntsville - A dog that had been tied to train tracks for a few days was rescued by Huntsville Police and the Rita B. Huff Animal Shelter. When Tai Culp and a couple of Huntsville police officers rescued the dog he was aggressive and scared.
You can hardly blame the animal, says Culp, an employee at the shelter. For at least a couple of days, the dog had been chained to a set of train tracks on Sycamore, going without food or water and enduring the heat that approached the 90s at times.
But now the dog is in much better spirits, especially since it’s gotten a little attention, food, water and shelter. “He was being aggressive at first, but he ended up chilling out,” Culp said. “He seems fine now. We let him out this morning and he’s fine, wagging his tail.”
But that doesn’t mean Culp’s not angry, and Huntsville police say the person responsible for abandoning the dog could face criminal charges.n”At first I was angry, because it makes all of us mad that someone would do that,” she said.
Around 1 p.m. Monday, someone came into the shelter and told Culp he’d seen a dog down by the railroad tracks barking. It appeared to be tied up. Culp called animal control, but since that group was shorthanded, HPD responded instead. Not long after, an officer enlisted Culp’s help in getting the animal, which she said was behaving defensively.
Using a catch pull – a device used by dog catchers to secure an animal more effectively than a leash – Culp subdued the animal. With the help of the officer, she managed to pet the dog, then slip its collar off its head.
A chain connected to the collar was attached to the train tracks, and a bolt cutter had to be used to remove it. “Somebody didn’t want the dog anymore,” Culp said. “It had to have been out there at least a couple of days. It was starving and very hot.”
Fortunately, the train tracks are no longer active, although it’s not clear if the person who put the dog there was aware of that. “It was really sad. If they’d gone half a mile down the road, they could have dropped (the dog) off here,” Culp said.
The dog in question should be available for adoption soon.
January 2005: East Bexar County - Nearly 100 dogs were seized and 5 people arrested in a dog fighting raid at Trainer Hale Road. Deputies said the property owner, Brain Bailey, ran one of the largest dogfighting rings in Texas. Deputies responded to a tip and found a dog fight in progress; 20 spectators were issued tickets. All of the 40 puppies and 50 adult pit bulls were abused and many were found chained and underweight.
January 2004: Ellis County - Christopher Gowins, 18, was charged with suspected dog fighting when he was arrested at a raid of a pit bull dog fighting operation near Avalon. Officials found more than 30 pit bulls, some with broken legs and open wounds at the location. Two dogs were found dead. The Humane Society in Fort Worth took custody of the dogs.
January 2004: Athens - A pit bull puppy was taken to Henderson County Humane Society after Athens police found the dog with his ears cut off. The pup was recovering and would be put up for adoption as an “indoor pet.”
January 2004: Ellis County- The Sheriff’s Office, working with the Humane Society of North Texas, recovered more than 30 pit bulls from a suspected dog fighting ring near Avalon. Some of the dogs had open wounds and broken bones. The dogs’ owners were Arlington residents and were not identified.
Unwanted, abandoned dogs, cats in San Antonio:
April 2009: At the current rate of animal sterilizations in San Antonio, the city’s goal of virtually ceasing the killing of cats and dogs by 2012 is unattainable, officials say.
Such a reality has triggered a sense of urgency among advocates and city officials, who in recent months have boosted efforts to persuade residents to have their pets spayed or neutered.
The city has enacted a law encouraging sterilization, forged partnerships with nonprofit clinics and funded free surgeries.
But so far, the message has failed to influence enough pet owners.
For Marcy Lynch, community outreach manager for the nonprofit Spay-Neuter Assistance Program, urgency has ripened into frustration.
“We’re trying to cut down on the number of unwanted puppies and kittens that are produced in the city of San Antonio, thereby stopping the tragedy of pet overpopulation,” Lynch said. “That is the key, period. It’s very obvious that we cannot kill our way out of it.”
About five years ago, Animal Care Services was euthanizing about 50,000 cats and dogs a year — more per capita than any other major American city.
Heightened public awareness brought changes: workers stopped cramming creatures into cages, lethal injections replaced poison gas and adoption rates climbed along with the department’s annual budget.
Yet ACS euthanized more than 26,000 cats and dogs last year, or nearly 75 percent of those brought to the facility. More than 4,000 animals have been killed this year, some of them on the same day they arrived.
“We have a finite amount of space at the shelter, and gone are the days when we’re stuffing five or six dogs in a kennel,” said Lisa Norwood, spokeswoman for ACS.
The waning timeline has inspired some blame.
City officials place much of the onus on residents who haven’t yet embraced responsible pet ownership. Others fault the city for what they call lackluster attempts at outreach and law enforcement. Most recognize that simply boosting adoption numbers won’t resolve the dilemma.
Kathleen McGowan, director of the nonprofit SpaySA, boiled it down to a simple fact.
“We’re never going to adopt our way out of this problem,” she said. “We’re going to have to spay and neuter.
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People who fight dogs:
Dog fighting is a state jail felony in Texas. However, possession of dogs for fighting and being a spectator at a dogfight are Class A misdemeanors.
National Canine Research Council