First, he tried super glue. And when that wasn’t enough to close a three-inch cut on the chest of a dog he was temporarily caring for, a Florida man rendered the dog unconscious with chloroform and stitched her up with dental floss, authorities say.
Broward County deputies took William Ralph Jones Jr., 55, of Oakland Park, into custody Wednesday and charged him with two counts of felony animal cruelty, Florida’s Sun Sentinel reported.
Jones’ impromptu surgery caused Zoe, a 2-year-old retriever mix, to suffer excessive and unnecessary pain, the sheriff’s office said.
Danielle Vecchio, Zoe’s owner, said she moved to a home that prohibited pets last year, leaving Zoe in the care of Jones, her friend’s father. “It’s horrible to think about what they did to her,” she said. “They called me only after she was dead.”
Zoe had repeatedly escaped from Jones’ yard, and on Jan. 12 suffered a cut of about 3 inches to her chest, the Sheriff’s Office said. Jones first tried to seal Zoe’s wound with super glue, but when it reopened the next day, he placed her on his coffee table and instructed his roommate to give the dog a muscle relaxant, the sheriff’s report states.
The dog, still conscious, wouldn’t calm down, so Jones got his roommate and his daughter to hold her down and held a solution over her muzzle that he said was chloroform before attempting to sew up the wound. After that, the dog never regained consciousness.
Jones posted $5,000 bond and was freed from jail yesterday.
Stray voltage has zapped another dog in New York, but the 7-year-old mixed breed named Princess appears to have survived the shock.
Matthew Voto, 80, of Brooklyn said his dog was shocked by the stray current as a friend walked her along a sidewalk on Union Avenue Monday morning. The dog yelped and started to bleed from the mouth, Voto told the New York Daily News.
Con Ed sent a crew of workers to the building yesterday and found that the building’s owner had installed electrical equipment that caused a “burnout” of a connector inside a basement circuit breaker. Due to the burnout, readings of 60 volts and 110 volts were recorded near the sidewalk where Princess was zapped.
Con Ed said the weekend storm may have helped bring about the situation because water and salt conduct electricity.
To learn more about the stray voltage phenomenon, which has claimed both dog and human lives, visit Streetzaps.com.
More than six months ago, a dog was hit by a car in St. Petersburg, Russia, and left to die.
But witnesses to the accident picked up the dog and brought him to a veterinary clinic. A veterinarian performed surgery, for free, but the dog’s spinal injuries were such that he lost the use of his back legs and wasn’t expected to walk again.
He was taken to an animal shelter, whose staff couldn’t bear the thought of the dog, who they named Tuzik, spending his life laying in the shelter’s dirt yard.
After a flurry of Internet searching and email exchanges, hampered by language differences, arrangements were made for Tuzik to be shipped to the U.S. and taken in by Pets With Disabilities, a non-profit group in Prince Frederick, Maryland.
The organization rescues and finds home for animals who have been injured through trauma or disabled by illness. It provides support and resources for the families of disabled pets and for shelters attempting to place special-needs animals into loving homes. Joyce Darrell and her husband, Michael Dickerson, founded the organization in 2000 after their dog Duke broke his back playing as a puppy. 
Tuzik arrived in October.
“Why a dog from Russia? We were wondering the same thing for many months,” Darrell says on the Pets With Disabilities website, “But Tuzik was on a mission to find a better life – and meet a family that would appreciate all he had to offer.” Darrell says he has “brought a sense of royal majesty to the rescue. It’s hard to explain, but when you sit with him, you have no pity for him – he really is not looking for that…
“He’s moving around the rescue with more confidence everyday. He’s begun to play with toys – and he has a huge heart to offer the right family.”
Tuzik is available for adoption. To see more of him and the organization’s other disabled dogs in need of homes, click here.
(Photo courtesy of Pets With Disabilities)
