On the local news last night there was a story about a German Shepherd, Lola, that was poisoned in her own back yard. She was a beloved pet of a family for over 10 years. Their 6 year old son was especially attached to Lola and she was his protector as well.

Their back yard is fenced in and they had let Lola out to run around for awhile. Later during the night, Lola got violently ill and they rushed her to the vet, not knowing what was wrong. Their other dogs (they have two others) were fine but the family was obviously worried about both their other pets as well as their kids. Well, Lola was soooooooo sick the vet helped them make the decision to put her down. When they did, they had necropsy done to find out for sure what had happened to her.

The neighborhood is a close one, everyone knows everyone, and many of the neighbors were in the front yard with the family crying, grieving with them, wondering what happened.

It finally came out what had happened to poor Lola ...........

It seems the family's next door neighbor had seen Lola running around in her own back yard and tossed some steak over the fence to her ... laced with ANTIFREEZE!! Antifreeze is a horrible way to die!! It causes crystals to form in the kidneys and it is so very painful and usually unsurvivable even with the most advanced vet care

The next door neighbor is a MAILMAN!!! (He may lose his job over this and I hope he does ) He said he was "tired of the dog's barking" so decided to take care of it himself! He said, "IT'S ONLY A DOG, WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S A CHILD OR ANYTHING. IT'S ONLY A DOG!!" AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

ONLY A DOG?! I personally hope the family ends up going after him for destruction of 'property' or something. ONLY A DOG?!! What a heartless excuse for a human being!! ONLY A DOG?! That family is devestated and the little boy cried himself to sleep for days!! The little boy says, "Lola is in heaven. I'll see her again someday." ONLY A DOG??!! I am so angry FOR the family I'm glad I don't live in that neighbordhood. The man would definitely feel a bit of the uncaring, unfeeling attitude he displays. After all, it's 'only a car' with flat tires, it's 'only a house' with rotten eggs thrown on it, it's 'only a yard' that's been salted so the grass dies. AARRGGHH!! I think he'd be run out of the neighborhood - how can he think he'll be able to live there with all those people KNOWING what he did?

*okay, down off the rant-box now* I know you all will understand how ANGRY and hurt I am for those people and for Lola. She was a lovely dog, well-loved and so loving. ONLY A DOG????????

It's a sad sad day when we can't even be sure our pets are safe in our own backyard. Stories like these make me crazy. Years ago, my hubby and I rented a house for a year. There was a bird feeder in the backyard, so I used to keep it filled at all times. UNTIL one day, I noticed the neighbour behind us hanging something from his tree (the branches came into our yard).After he went inside, I go down and look, and it was a dead bird. Sick or what?! Guess he didn't like all the birds around. I truly believe that what goes around comes around...

i just don't understand people.....and THIS is why I prefer pets over people for the most part....

Murder is taking anothers life... even if that life is canine. What a jerk. My dogs are my kids too.

I heard this news story last night as well. Hubby and I had this same discussion. You know to that six year old boy Lola was more than just a dog. The mailman is awful, he said something like "I don't know why they would even consider jail time. It was just a dog not a kid." But to the kid it was his best friend, his protector and a loving part of the family. She was not just a dog, she was loved and even the mother was crying at the trial. He does deserve jail time and the loss of his job. Just think about how many family pets he is in contact with every single day. I assure you I would not want to think any of my pets were in danger from someone who is here everyday. I would try my best to find a way to keep him off of my property.
I think the others in that nieghborhood should do the same. Prove to the courts he is a danger and keep him off of thier properties.

That is awful. THe same thing happened to my aunts boxer but his death was instant. He was not allowed any table food or bones because he has a sensitive stomach they went out one morning to feed him and he did not come runnin to the deck he was dead in his dog house with a ham bone in front of him. they never found out who did it.

karma is a you know what. and so am i. i feel really bad (as in pity) for people who don't understand the bond between man and beast. i feel even worse (as in sorry for) for anyone who messes with any part of my family. no guilt on my part for anything bad that may befall anyone who messes with us.

i'm glad i have nice neighbors. as loud as our birds can get, we haven't had one complaint. and you can hear louie at the opposite end of our block if we are on the porch with the windows open.

i hope that guy gets what he deserves from somewhere. maybe the other neighbors will drive him out.

kris

I don't understand the mentality of someone like that. Yes, he should get jail time and a lot of it. It was obviously premeditated, animal cruelty (sp) And if the family doesn't get justification in court I'd take him to civil court for damages such as destruction of property. mental anguish of all family members and anything else a good lawyer can come up with. Then put a lein on his house and have a garnishment attached to his wages and his Income tax etc, etc. He wants to play hard ball...play hard ball...

What an idiot!

what a sick, sick, twisted thing to do! I hope the neighborhood runs him out of his house and yes I hope he loses his job and maybe he will lose his house. Sorry to wish stuff like that on people, but hopefully he will get more then he deserves. That is just horrible! I really feel for the family...........

Something similar happened when I was little. We had a collie named Bob who was the nicest dog, never dreamed of biting anyone, kids all over the neighborhood could come over and play with him, and we lived next door to a two-apartment rental property. A man living there got tired of Bob barking at him when he came home drunk in the middle of the night and shot him. The only trouble he got into was for firing a gun in the city limits. No trouble for killing our dog. I was about 4 or 5. I still remember how awful it was. What I'd like to do to people like that is put them in stocks or give them a public whipping so they'd really suffer, because you can't make someone like that understand what they've done. If they could understand the depth of what they'd done, they wouldn't have been capable of doing it.

This story sickens me. In my opinion, anyone who abuses an animal should be made to feel the same abuse. You lock a dog in a crate with its own filth for days at a time, you get locked in a cage until your feet get sore and infected. The mailman should be made to feel the same pain he inflicted on Lola. Animals have feelings and emotions too and rely on us to care for them and keep them comfortable. After all they do for us, why would anyone let them down like that? My heart goes out to Lola's family. People like the mailman are unforgiveable.

I'd like to lace his coffee!

LOL - Sorry to laugh, but EquineRtist's comment was funny. It reminded me of something I did a few years ago... Anyway, I agree with everyone, I will never understand people like that. On Dr. Phil the other day, he had on a woman who has no empathy...how sad. It saddened me but mostly confused the heck out of me...how can someone not have empathy?? Not understand that doing or saying certain things hurt people? I don't know...that man needs to go to prison and lose his job...horrible.

That is horrible. My family has had golden retrievers all my life and they have one now named Abbie. If anything like that ever happened to Abbie..there is no telling what my parents would do. Completely horrible

What a sick and twisted individual. What do human beings think that their lives are more imporant than other animals. Only a dog my ***. He should be punished. That's premeditated murder I am sorry. He should serve time IMO.

IF someone did deliberate harm to my girls without even killing them I would would come down on him or her like a ton of bricks. Life is life. Taht is why it disgusted me that during Katrina people were forced to leave their animals behind when they evacuated. I don't think I could ever do that. I would rather stay with my girls and die than be forced to leave them.

Pappagallo, I totally agree with you. One of my friends is a firefighter and he said that mobile homes are like hay...if a fire started in our house we would only have about 30 seconds to get out before it exploded. He said there wouldn't be time to grab the animals and get out. I'd rather stay and die with the animals. I would try to get them out and if I couldn't I would take them all to one room so we would all be together. I don't think I could live with myself if I couldn't save my animals.

How awful We have a 3 yr old Golden retriever, and if something ever happened to him all 3 of my kids would be crushed..for a very long time.To them, as well as myself and hubby, Sonny is so much more then 'just a dog' he is an important member of our family and is treated as such.....
That poor family, that poor heart-broken little boy..I hope that man serves time and is out of his job...
Punch him in the nose... THEN lace his coffee....

Just read this. This knida of thing always makes me MAD. I agree with everything that evrybody has said. I hope he loses his job too. My pets are my kids. And yes I sometimes rather be with Paco,Quaker or Angel Poodle than some people I know.

We just encountered something similar with the rescue I am volunteering with. We had a family come in with their dog saying they needed to give her up. They didn't want to but apparently they had two other dogs that have died recently - the first one, when she got sick they just thought it was some fluke thing - well then the second got sick and dies within a few days and then the third one started to show similar signs - the vet decided to necropsy the second dog and found she had been poisoned with rat poison - and then he realized that was probably what happened to the first dog too. It seems their neighbor doesn't like the dogs because they do their business too close to his yard and he thinks it is contamitating his vegetable garden.
Apparently the police can't do anything because they have no proof so this family was giving up their dog so it wouldn't be poisoned to death like the other two. We got one of our volunteers to take the dog temporarily and now we are all working to see what can be done to their yard to keep the dog away from the neighbor or get the police involved.

We think we can help them build some kind of dog run after the ground thaws that will be far enough away from the neighbors yard that he can't get anything in it. He is already managing to get something in over an 8 ft high solid fence so we have to really think this one through.

Nothing ticks me off more than stuff like this. I see a lot of it and quite frankly, I hate that attitude. Its probably a good thing I am not the one enforcing the law too...since I believe in the ol' "an eye for an eye" theory and feel these monsters deserve to be treated the same way.

This kind of thing makes me quite angry, too. For too many things, without evidence you can't do anything, but at least this time the culprit is known. Many years ago, our dog Duke was stabbed in the ribs by a neighbor who wanted a tool from our locked garage. The police told my mother that unless she saw him do it, they couldn't do anything, and even then it would be her word against his. The knife missed all the major organs, but he sure was sore until he healed.

disgusting. All I can say. Sick people.

My neighbors x-husband had 2 bumper stickers on his truck. One said "missing your cat? look under my tires" and the other one said "I use cats for musky bait"

My kitty, declawed and an inside cat got out once, last seen in his yard. Never saw her again.

GGRRRRRR.

We had a fire in our home several years ago. At the time, we had 3 pomeraninas and 1 mutt in the house. One of our poms was blind, and he went under the bed and we got all the dogs out but him. When I realized we didn't have Smiley, I tried my best to get back in the house, but the firemen wouldn't let me. They brought him out....he had died of smoke inhalation. I tried mouth to mouth on him with no luck. That had to be one of the saddest days of my life.

awww, that's so sad Lisa...

What an awful story, it make me so sad that a human being could commit such a horrible act to a helpless animal. Worse yet to a family's pet. They must be devastated. I know that God teaches us not to seek revenge, turn the other cheek but if someone did that to one of my babies I would defiantly be doing something! I hope they can take him to court and he looses his job and he SHOULD get jail time. What a sad, sad story. Julie

omg that is sooo sad. this is why i hate people

we live out in the country pretty much
i would NEVER live in close proximity with other people in one of those little houses that have a tiny yard in them

i would never be able to stand it right now i live with my parents and when i move i will be moving into a place with a large yard
and if i cant i will never let my animals in the yard with out watching them the entire time

i dont trust people and when they do things like this it makes me even more untrusting

and for the fact that he said"it wasnt like it was a kid or something"

that makes me mad what if it were a kid? kids put things in their mouths ALL the time
i would hope they would know not to eat food they find outside on the ground but what if they did?

imho animal abusers dont get anywhere close to the punishment they deserve

You know the bad thing is that this is happening every day and I agree that these "people" don't get no where near strong enough punishment. I watch Animal Cops aon Animal Planet whenever I can and it is really sad to see that the animals get taken away and maybe, just maybe, the offender gets 90 days in jail! We, animal lovers, need to unite and get this fixed, not in one state, but in all states.

We currently have the same situation going on where I live. My in-laws had this beautiful 13-year-old chocolate lab named Hunter. Hunter never bothered anyone or anything. My father-in-law has been fighting cancer over the last year. Hunter was his best buddy - even brought him the newspaper (laid it at his feet) every day. Hunter was old and barely got around. Well, a neighbor down the road has taken to poisoning all the dogs in that area because he just can't stand to see them! My in-laws have a house with over 20 acres of land. Next door to their house is my sister-in-law and she has another 5 acres of land. The only time the neighbor sees these dogs is when he drives down the road to or from his house. All properties on this road are fully gated also. A few weeks ago 2 of my sister-in-laws dogs died and no one could figure out why. Then about a week later Hunter died in the front yard in front of my in-laws. How sad. The next day the neighbor down the road actually caught the guy throwing a piece of meat into her yard. She got to the meat before her dog did. She called the police and lo-and-behold there is nothing they can do about it. Just makes me madder than all get out! Anyway, I will stop my rant now. Sorry.

It is such a sad thing when animals are considered throw away.

Dana

Just one more argument to strengthen my dislike of humans............ give me an animal anytime, no animal I know can possibly be so heartless. It's a wicked act this guy did.......... I can only hope that Karma gets him in the end. Hopefully, and I don't usually say things like this, I just live and let live, but I HOPE that in his case, what goes around, comes around.
People like this should live in neighbourhoods perhaps specific to people who don't like living near animals........... would be pretty small neighbourhoods, but at leats we animal lovers who live with our fur-babies can live in peace, knowing nothing this terible will ever happen again.

OH MY GOD I H8 PEOPLE LIKE THIS! IT IS TOTALLY INHUMANE!

No, this guy is NOT dangerous....look at the statistics....the majority of serial killers started out abusing animals and this guy has probably been doing it all his life. So sad.