A Basingstoke man pleaded guilty at Basingstoke Magistrates court to strangling a dog to death with its lead.
Stephan Graham Bullock, 23, pleaded guilty on Tuesday, September 7 for failing to protect the dog from pain, injury and suffering under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
Bullock, from Walnut Way, Basingstoke, strangled the six-year-old German shepherd-lurcher cross, named Alfie Moon, because his sister did not want it any more.
The court heard how the RSPCA was alerted to incident after a member of the public discovered his dead body half buried in a wooded area. He had a lead wrapped tightly around his neck.
Veterinary evidence and a post-mortem showed the dog had been asphyxiated by his lead and he would have suffered considerably due to strangulation.
RSPCA inspector Jan Edwards, who took the case to court, said: “In Alfie's last moments he would of suffered pain and extreme distress whilst being strangled by Bullock - a brutal and calculated act which fills me with sadness, disbelief and horror.”
In court, Bullock admitted it took two or three minutes of the dog whimpering, before the animal went limp and died.
Magistrates’ heard that Bullock’s sister was unable to cope with the dog, so she asked Bullock, who was living with her at the time, to re-home the dog.
Bullock walked the dog to a vet for help and he was advised to call the RSPCA. But he then walked to a wooded area he knew was solitary and he strangled the dog with his full force, using its lead.
Magistrates gave Bullock a lifetime disqualification from owning or keeping any animals and a 12 month supervision order
He was also ordered to carry out 50 hours of unpaid community work and to pay RSPCA costs of £400.
Bullock pleaded guilty to the offence but his defence asked the court not to give him a prison sentence, saying he had been accepted into the army and prison time would cause him to miss his basic training.
The dog was rescue dog rehomed by the RSPCA Millbrook Animal Centre, in Surrey. His adopter had passed Alfie onto a new owner who in turn had decided they no longer wanted him and so gave him to Bullock’s sister.
Ms Edwards said: “This case is particularly distressing as the dog should have been placed back into RSPCA care under the terms of adoption, rather than being passed on to people who could not care for him.”
