Oregon City man gets jail time for killing 6 puppies

OREGON -- A Oregon City man who slit a dog's throat and beat six puppies to death will serve 130 days in the Clackamas County Jail.

Joshua Kyle Stitt, 21, pleaded guilty Friday to four counts of aggravated animal abuse in the first degree and a misdemeanor charge of animal abuse.

Joshua Kyle Stitt. Just 21 years old and he
already has a long mugshot history

"There are people who are going to read about this sentence and ... be more angry than if you killed a child," said Circuit Judge Robert D. Herndon.

Herndon also sentenced Stitt, to 18 months of supervised probation followed by 3-1/2 years of unsupervised probation.

On Sept. 4, Stitt stabbed his father's blue heeler-Doberman mix, Blue, 10 times using a pocket knife with a three-inch blade and cut the dog's throat, said Sarah Dumont, a Clackamas County deputy district attorney.

The dog did not die quickly, Dumont said.

Stitt also beat six puppies to death with a metal rod, dismembering some of the dogs, Dumont said.

Stitt did not offer any explanation for his actions. His attorney, Charles A. Moore said Stitt killed the older dog because he feared it was going to bite his wife. He killed the puppies because he was moving and didn't have the money to take them to the pound, Moore said.

Blue belonged to Stitt before he joined the U.S. Marines. While he was away, the dog bonded with Stitt's father, John.

John Stitt told deputies his son was discharged from the Marines because of mental problems.

Herndon ordered Joshua Stitt to undergo a mental evaluation and to follow whatever treatment is recommended. He also prohibited Stitt from possessing any animals for the five years he is on probation.

"If it were up to me, you'd be prohibited from owning any animals for the rest of your life," Herndon said.

(The Oregonian - November 13, 2009)

Peru: Santos Garcia, 85, killed by his own pit bull

PERU -- An 85-year-old man who owned a pit bull bled to death after being brutally attacked in the leg and face by the animal, which apparently became enraged after being punished, Peruvian media reported Thursday.

Santos Garcia died Wednesday at the Casimiro Ulloa Emergency Hospital after suffering severely torn muscle tissue in one of his legs and the loss of part of his nose, his upper lip and right eye, the El Comercio newspaper said.

The elderly man had punished the dog two days ago for destroying some household objects and did so again on Wednesday, which prompted the dog to retaliate.

The victim, who lived in Lima’s San Juan de Miraflores district, died en route to the hospital.

The dog was locked in a room in the house after the attack and later taken at the request of the family to an anti-rabies center, where a decision will be made on the animal’s fate.

Pit bulls have become very popular in Peru in recent years as guard dogs, but they also are used by gang members to attack their victims.

(Latin American Herald Tribune - Nov 12, 2009)

Toledo woman pleads not guilty in animal cruelty case

WASHINGTON -- A Toledo woman charged with 20 counts of second-degree animal cruelty pled not guilty Friday afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court.

Theresa Hahn, 26, was accused of animal cruelty after Lewis County deputies seized 20 dogs, most of them Pomeranians, after they were found living in allegedly inhumane conditions at her property in early October.

Theresa Hahn

Judge R.W. Buzzard released her, without bail, on the condition she would allow a Lewis County Animal Shelter official to inspect her property and the living conditions of the other 100 plus animals on her property located on the 100 block of Rockridge Lane.

Prosecuting attorney Shane O'Rourke asked Buzzard earlier to consider bail to be set at $5,000.

Early last month, Lewis County deputies, accompanied by animal control and animal health officials, found dogs that were being kept in a double-wide modular home that smelled of animal waste. Over 150 dogs were estimated to be on the property.

Workers had to put on breathing apparatuses before entering the residence.

One Pomeranian puppy died an hour after being rescued, and another had its eye removed because of an infection.


Hahn denied the allegations of animal cruelty saying many of the animals were ill and had been rescued. She denied deputies claims that there was fecal matter all over the house.

She moved to Lewis County following a separate investigation into animal cruelty in Clackamas County, Ore., where she once lived.

She said she will fight to get her dogs back from the animal shelter.

(TDN - Nov 7, 2009)

Dog attack girl has 17 stitches

UNITED KINGDOM -- An eight-year-old girl has had 17 stitches in her face after being mauled by the family dog.

Courtney Charlesworth was stroking the pet at her home in East End Park, Leeds, when it turned on her.

Her mother said she was "very lucky" not to have been blinded as one bite narrowly missed the schoolgirl's eye.

Courtney's parents, who bought the animal for £20 to save it from being abandoned, have warned other families to be more careful when getting a dog.

The schoolgirl's father, Christopher Charlesworth, said he offered to take the dog in after hearing it was going to be tied to a tree and abandoned by its owner.

'No indication'
He said the animal, who the family had for a month, got on well with his three daughters and there had been "no indication" that it would attack.

He told BBC News: "It's just heart-wrenching. If it's going to bite anybody you want it to be yourself, not your kids. It's just not nice at all.  No more dogs. We'll stick to goldfish."

Courtney said she was "very frightened" during the attack.

She said: "I was just stroking it when it was on his bed and then he just went for me. He bit me then I had blood all over my face. It was all over my pyjamas, my top and all in my hair and I went to hospital."

Courtney's mother Julie was in the bath when the attack happened downstairs.

She said: "I'd left [the dog with the children] loads of times by themselves, even when we got the dog and he was fine with them.

"I just heard the dog barking and growling so I rushed downstairs and by the time I'd got downstairs Courtney was at the bottom of the stairs covered in blood.

"She was screaming... she was terrified, she didn't know what had happened to her. If I thought for one minute [the dog] would have hurt them I would never have left them in the first place."

[In the video clip, the dad is talking about the dog and how it seemed safe with the kids - at first. It sounds at the very end that he says that anyone thinking of getting a Staffordshire should get another... as in another breed of dog. But it's hard to tell with his accent and then the clip abruptly ends.]

(BBC - November 6, 2009)

Man accused of pouring bleach on girlfriend's cat, then punching her

OREGON -- A 32-year-old Portland man is accused of pouring bleach on his girlfriend's cat, then punching her in the face when she begged him to tell her what had happened to her missing cat.

She later found the bloodied short-haired feline, meowing in a kitchen cabinet of her home, with injuries to its nose and face, according to court documents.

Portland Officer Gabe Hertzler rushed the cat to Dove Lewis Emergency Animal Hospital, and took photos of the cat owner's face, which was red and swollen.



Faces of Evil: Daniel Warren Clark

Daniel Warren Clark now faces fourth-degree assault, harassment and second-degree animal abuse charges. He's pleaded not guilty and is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center.
The incident occurred about 8:30 p.m. Oct. 24 during a domestic dispute.

The girlfriend told police she was trying to help fix her boyfriend's computer, but that angered him, sparking a confrontation about her suspicions that he was cheating on her, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in court.

The girlfriend said she left the house. When she came home around 2 a.m., she noticed two of her cats and her dog hiding in the living room, looking scared. A third cat was missing.

When she walked into the bedroom, she saw spots of blood on the wall, and feared that her boyfriend had harmed her cat. He told her the blood was his own, but she didn't see any injuries to him, she told police.

She begged him to tell her where her missing cat was, and called her boyfriend a "punk," the affidavit says. He pushed her over the back of a sofa, causing her to fall to the floor. He came at her again. She tried to hit him, but missed, and he punched her in the right side of her face, knocking her to the ground, the affidavit says.

The girlfriend left her home, taking two of her cats and the dog to a neighbor's home.

By 4:30 a.m. Oct. 25, she returned to her home, and again urged her boyfriend to tell what happened to her cat. Clark left the house, and the woman heard the cat meowing from the kitchen cabinet. She found the cat with blood on its face and mouth.

Dr. Kathy Keenan, of Dove Lewis animal hospital, said bleach is very abrasive, can burn the cornea of the eye and potentially be blinding. But tests showed the bleach didn't burn the cat's corneas, Keenan said.

The nearly year-old cat, named Nemesis, was released the same day.

Clark is on post-prison supervision stemming from 1996 convictions for attempted first-degree rape and first-degree assault of an ex-girlfriend.

As he awaits trial on the recent charges, the court ordered him not to own, possess or supervise any animal, and undergo random urinalysis tests if released from custody.

Court records show he's been dating his girlfriend for nine months, is unemployed and had completed an anger management class in prison.

Last month, another Portland man who beat his ex-girlfriend and impaled her pet fish was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.

A 1997 national survey by a Utah State University professor and two others found that the overwhelming majority of battered women shelters surveyed indicated that women seeking shelter mention experiences of pet abuse. The animal abuse is done by perpetrators to frighten their partners, as a threat of interpersonal attacks, and, as a form of retaliation or punishment.

(The Oregonian - November 4, 2009)

Tennessee: Little girl, 10, gets media attention in small town newspaper for killing a deer.

TENNESSEE - Gretchen Elmy, 4th grade student at Woodbury Grammar School, killed her first deer on 11-01-09 at 4:00 p.m. at a distance of 100 yards.

I do not have a problem with most legal hunting (people who use dogs and use bait animals like dog fighters to "train" their dogs are another story). I do have a problem with people not having respect for the animals that they maim and kill. 

First, let's quit referring to maiming and killing animals as "bagging" them. You didn't "bag" them, you killed them (hopefully quickly, but we all know that rarely happens). They also say they "harvested" them; no, you killed it. 

Statistics from Wildlife & Game commissions say that about half the wildlife shot at, whether with bows/arrows or guns, are not retrieved by the hunters. The animal is wounded and running for their lives and the hunter either cannot find them to finally put them out of their misery by killing them or they are so engrossed in finding animals to kill that they don't care that this wounded animal ran off and is somewhere suffering, slowly dying. Sometimes the crippled animal lies there for days or drags itself around, gut shot or with a broken leg or wing, until finally dying of starvation and its injuries.

Show me that this kid was respectful about taking this animal's life. Show me that her family paid to have it processed and utilized everything they could from this animal. Show me that she cares about animals; not just being driven somewhere, handed a gun and told to pull the trigger on a deer that was likely been baited for months with corn at a certain spot (and possibly one of those somewhat tame deer that roam around subdivisions).

(Cannon Courier - November 3, 2009)

Ohio: Mastiff Breeder Sues Cops for $2.3M

OHIO -- A man who breeds rare mastiffs for police departments says a police chief violated contract and ruined a bloodline by having one of his female dogs spayed, costing him as much as $2 million in lost puppies.

Ohio-based TNK9 sued The Village of Harwood Heights and Police Chief Martin Podesek in Cook County Court.

Thomas Hockett, one of only a few Cane Corso mastiff breeders in the country, donates the large, intelligent dogs to police departments for use in narcotics investigations.

I have NEVER seen a Cane Corso or a Mastiff being used in the USA by police.

The Cane Corso, which is large even for a mastiff, has an ancient lineage; Romans used them in wars. Hockett says he funds his donations by selling puppies for $2,000 to $3,000 each.

He says that the contract he signed with Harwood Heights clearly prohibited spaying the dog. But he says he saw a surgery scar while visiting the dog and learned that Podosek had had it spayed.

When asked why he had breached the contract, the chief said that “Hockett could take him to court,” according to the complaint.

So he did.

Hockett says the dog’s bloodline has been destroyed, and he will have to import another female from Europe for more than $10,000.

The dog could have had up to five litters in her lifetime – about 50 puppies – of which about 35 would be female. By the third generation, there would be 525 salable puppies, Hockett says.

He demands $2.3 million for breach of contract. He is represented by The Moran Law Group.

(Courthouse News - Nov 3, 2009)