Tragic Dog Story in Today's Roanoke Times

I've never been a person who cried easily; I hold my emotions inside. But today, in the Roanoke Times Virginia section, I read a piece that just horrified me, and made me cry. Forgive me if this upsets someone who didn't read about it in the RT, or who lives in another area.

A fellow who had a small white curly-haired dog from a pup, a little dog who had become deaf, blind, and had lost all her teeth in the 14 years he'd had her as his only companion, even the years he'd lived on the streets after suffering a nervous breakdown, had finally moved into a house with a fenced yard, but his little dog had disappeared.

He posted notices and called the animal control officer, who had the sad duty of calling him back to tell him his little dog had been killed. It seems a 22-year old man had beaten the little dog to death, while two of his friends watched. When the man realized someone else was watching the beating, he insisted the dog had snapped at him and tried to attack him. The man who had witnessed the killing said outside court that he didn't believe the killer's story. "How are you going to get a deaf, blind dog to attack somebody?" he said. "How does he know you're there?" He testified that when he came home the evening of June 18, he heard his own dogs barking. He peered over his fence to see a tall, shirtless man repeatedly beating a small dog with a stick as the dog lay on the ground, twitching her tail.

Continuing to insist the dog had attacked him, after the director of the state animal health lab testified that the dog had severe bruising along her back and her skull had been caved in, the director was asked if she could have been rabid. He replied that the condition of her body meant he could not reliably be tested for diseases. The owner and caretaker of the little dog said her shots were up to date and she was wearing her Roanoke dog tag when she was killed.

The case has been referred to the grand jury. The killer could get five years in prison after a law was passed and went into effect in July 2002. Before that, only a year in jail and a $2,500 fine would have been the judgment. Five years? Isn't that how Jeffrey Dahmer began, by brutalizing small defenseless animals?

Pookie's owner...that was her name, Pookie...says he still breaks into tears, particularly when he sees a dog that reminds him of his loss.

Tuesday evening, I sat in a room-full of people of every age, all of them dog-lovers there to learn more about training their pups or grown dogs. Today, we see what happens when someone, for whatever reason, chooses to harm, to beat, to kill a small blind, deaf, toothless dog, a 14-year loving companion to his owner, who at one time had to scavenge from restaurant dumpsters to feed both of them.

Is this what our world is coming to? How many monsters are out there?