AR-News: (TX - US) Investigators find 7 neglected pit bulls

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July 4, 2004, 10:27PM


Animal cruelty suspect arrested

By PEGGY O'HARE
Copyright 2004 Houston ChronicleA man was arrested on animal cruelty charges 
Saturday after Houston homicide investigators found seven malnourished pit 
bulls chained in his yard, some so weak they couldn't walk. The animals were 
seized by Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigators. The 
21-year-old man, who said he owned six of the dogs, will be charged with six 
counts of cruelty to animals, police said. But he denied starving the dogs and 
claimed they were afflicted with internal parasites that prevented them from 
gaining weight. Animal cruelty investigators, however, said the man's claim was 
impossible and that the dogs appeared to not have been fed for weeks. A TV crew 
from the Animal Planet network later filmed the rescue. The dogs were found 
around 11 a.m. when Houston Police Department homicide investigators C.P. "Abbey" 
Abbondandolo and Paul Motard -- both self-professed dog lovers -- went to a 
home south of downtown searching for a woman they wanted to question about a 
recent stabbing death in the Cuney Homes area. When the officers stopped by her 
boyfriend's house at the corner of Berry and St. Emanuel streets, they 
stumbled upon the dogs kept in an overgrown back yard -- some tied with short chain 
links to a car, others chained to fences and poles. The dogs' ribs stuck out 
prominently. The owner claimed he fed the animals several times a day and had 
dog food in the house at the time of his arrest. An SPCA investigator scoffed at 
that, calling it a case of "weeks of malnourishment." "They're eaten up, they 
have parasites," SPCA cruelty investigator Scott Wernick said of the dogs. 
"They haven't been fed ... He doesn't deserve to have animals." 

    
    

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