Crimes against people's pets are particularly frightening. Our dogs and cats are helpless and vulnerable, and when they're deliberately harmed, we hope the justice system will step in and punish the criminals swiftly - and with an appropriate sentence.

In my hometown this week, a man was sentenced to six months in county jail after he pleaded no contest to beating his girlfriend's seven-pound Miniature Pinscher to death. I won't go into the horrid details, but Ryan Reeser, 27, allowed the six-year-old dog, named Godiva, to bleed to death, then threw the body into a plastic storage container, where it was found the next day by the woman's father.

Was six months an appropriate sentence? I'm still debating that in my mind. I'm glad to see the man put behind bars for committing such a dreadful act, but I wonder if six months is long enough, either as punishment or a deterrent to others.

Does it fit the crime? Should he have been imprisoned for one year? Longer?

Let me know what you think.

I don't know if you saw the story about the woman who recently adopted 27 dogs from a shelter to prevent them from being euthanized. When I first read it, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

I'm sure Colleen Spalioni's heart was in the right place. She lost her own dog in November when it was struck and killed by a car, and she wanted to find another that looked just like him. Her Internet search led her to Dogsindanger.com, a site that posts photos of dogs in shelters with the number of days they have left until they are euthanized.

Spalioni, who lives near Reno, hired a teenage neighbor to drive with her almost 800 miles to a shelter near Bakersfield, Calif., where she found a dog that resembled her own. But after seeing so many dogs in need of homes, she just couldn't help herself.

She adopted the dog she wanted - and 26 others, including one Chihuahua, 10 Chihuahua mixes, two German Shepherd mixes, two Miniature Pinschers, a Jack Russell Terrier and a Poodle. She loaded them into her truck and drove home.

Everything would have been fine, except that her new dogs did what dogs normally do. They barked -- so much, in fact, that the neighbors began complaining. And then she was told that a local ordinance allows no more than three dogs per household.

Since then, Spalioni has been looking for new homes for the dogs. So far, she's found places for almost all of them.

And, she said, "I learned my lesson. I promise I won't do this again."

Her concern for the dogs is admirable. I commend her. I'm sure others would love to do the same if they had the space and time to love and care for dogs in need.

But as someone who owns four dogs, I could have told her: It's a lot of work.