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The severely injured dog died on his way to the veterinarian. A woman poured boiling water and oil over him as punishment for stealing meat out of a cooking pot in her yard. Photo supplied.

Totally barbaric!

Date: 07 July 2019 By: Andries van Zyl

The barbaric nature of some human beings never ceases to amaze. This was again evident after a gruesome incident where a resident of Tshikota poured boiling water and oil over a dog as punishment for stealing a few pieces of meat out of a cooking pot.

Senior inspector Lawrence Khodobo of the Louis Trichardt SPCA was called out to Tshikota on Monday where he found the badly burnt dog. Despite doing all he could, the dog sadly succumbed to its severe injuries on the way to the veterinarian.

The story behind this gruesome find was that this dog, acting purely on instinct, stole some meat out of a cooking pot that was left out in the open in a local Tshikota resident’s yard. This was on Monday, 24 June.

The owner of the meat, outraged by what the dog had done, tracked down the dog’s owner and demanded payment for the stolen meat. The owner of the dog initially agreed to refund the owner of the meat.

By Wednesday last week, the wife of the owner of the meat came by the dog owner’s house to collect. Alas, he was unable to pay upon which the woman indicated that they would then have to “sort out” the dog themselves. What happened next can only be described as a tragic example of how barbaric some people can be.

The same day, the woman apparently lured the dog back to their house, right into a snare they had set for it. Whilst the dog was still trapped in the snare, the woman then poured boiling water and oil over the dog and left it to suffer in the snare.

Only on Friday last week did a passer-by take pity on the dog, still trapped in the snare in agonising pain, and freed the dog from the snare. However, the dog was still left to endure a weekend of suffering until eventually Khodobo was informed of the incident.

“We are in the process of formulating charges against the woman,” said local SPCA spokesperson Alicia Thomas, adding that because of the violent nature of the incident, this case was definitely going to court. “Luckily we have an eyewitness who is willing to testify in court about everything that happened. When the owner of the dog was unable to pay, the woman decided to take the law into her own hands,” said Thomas.

Thomas said that residents should be made aware that incidents of this gruesome nature happened far too frequently, especially in rural areas. Regarding this, she said, they had a huge task in terms of educating both pet and animal owners and the public in general. “We asked the owner of the dog why he didn’t phone us earlier. Apparently, he thought if he phoned it was going to cost him money. In many cases, pet owners leave their injured animals, hoping that they will recover by themselves, which is almost never the case. But at least in this case, he did eventually phone,” said Thomas. As for the woman’s actions, Thomas said that she could not understand what the woman was thinking.

“I mean, there are hungry dogs everywhere in Tshikota. Obviously they will take the meat if given the opportunity,” said Thomas.

Thomas urged the public not to worry about payment but rather to report any form of animal abuse to them as soon as possible. “I cannot imagine what pain this dog went through. We didn’t even have time to humanely euthanise him as he died on the way to the vet,” said Thomas.

Thomas said that she would keep the newspaper and public up to date regarding the pending court case. “Thank heavens for an eyewitness, because in most cases of animal abuse people are too afraid of testifying,” said Thomas.

 

 
 
 

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

 
 

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