Credit: Bexar County Sheriff's Office

Man Arrested for Strangling Dog, Carrying Its Body Around His Neck

A man in San Antonio has been charged with animal cruelty when he was spotted with his dead dog hanging around his neck.

We think animal cruelty is really one of the, if not THE, worst things a person could do. So please excuse us if we have no sympathy for this guy who abused and tortured his dog.

According to KTXS's San Antonio staff, William Rose, aged 40, was arrested and charged with 'Cruelty to Non-Livestock Animals' after he was seen carrying his dead dog around his neck by a neighbor. His arrest report states that Rose told the neighbor, "that his dog 'Rocky' had died and he was going to walk him around one last time."

That is seriously disturbing if you ask us.

The animal abuse complaint actually started when a witness had seen the dog behind Rose's apartment, with wire around the dog's neck as a makeshift shrine. When officers and Animal Care Investigators confronted Rose, he said that his dog had died from depression, but a further post-mortem necropsy indicated that the dog died from "mechanical asphyxia due to strangulation." Simply stated, the dog was strangled to death.

During an investigation interview at Bexar County Jail, the already-incarcerated-man (on another charge, though) told officers that he had taken the dog out for a long 20-minute walk off-leash, only faced with the apartment security telling him that the dog had to be walked on a leash.

But here's the kicker: Rose then proceeded to hold onto his dog by his collar, which caused the dog to be lifted off his front paws during the remainder of the walk.

The police report also states that Rose had told the officers that the dog was having trouble breathing when he brought him back to the apartment, but was still alive when he left. However, he found the dog dead when he came back to his apartment. Rose also told the investigators,

"He wanted to carry him around one last time before he was going to 'throw him in the dumpster'", the arrest report says.

Rose was released with a $25,000 bond and faces a maximum penalty for animal cruelty in Texas of up to two years of jail time and a fine.

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