Man's Best Friend [Commentary]

Montgomery County Judge Richard E. Jordan was so appalled by the actions of former Baltimore Police Officer Alec Taylor that he went outside sentencing guidelines to order the man committed to jail for a year — four times the maximum recommendation of three months.

Mr. Taylor's crime? Beating a dog to death.

The facts of the case are pretty horrific. The officer pummeled "Rocko," a tiny Jack Russell terrier, with a mop, choked him and left him lying on the floor all because the pup had soiled a rug. Mr. Taylor then sent a girlfriend a series of unemotional text messages about the beating, including this one: "Yeah I think he's pretty much dead. Imma throw him out now."

We certainly don't question the judge's outrage over the incident. But we do wonder why similar outrage is so often lacking when the victim is a person.

Witness the string of costly settlements Baltimore City has paid out to people who say they were beaten up by police — charges that drew so little interest from those in authority that for years no one bothered to track which officers faced such civil suits. And it took a public shaming, in the form of a video release, to get the city police department to suspend (with pay) Officer Victor Cosom recently, two months after he was recorded on duty raining punches on a man near a city bus stop.

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Former Police Officer Gets 1 Year For Killing Puppy

Rockville, Maryland - A former Baltimore police officer who admitted to killing his girlfriend's puppy was sentenced to one year in jail Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Alec Eugene Taylor of Silver Spring, Md. pleaded guilty to aggravated animal cruelty in August after being charged with beating and choking his girlfriend's puppy and texting her a photo of the dog's body.

His girlfriend reported that he had killed Rocko, a 7-month-old Jack Russell Terrier, on Feb. 26.

Taylor was facing up to three years in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Read about the details of the case here: http://on.wusa9.com/1qgT1wh

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Man Convicted of Setting Dog on Fire Found Shot in Buffalo

A man who was convicted of animal cruelty in a well-known case involving a Jack Russell Terrier puppy being set on fire was shot on Monday morning on Humboldt Parkway in Buffalo, New York, October 6, 2014, according to the Buffalo News.

Adell Ziegler, 21, had gunshot wounds to his groin and buttocks, and is in stable condition. Ziegler served a short sentence for the October 29, 2012 animal cruelty incident. A dog, who became known as Phoenix, was set on fire by Ziegler and another man, Diondre Brown, 19, and was severely burned. Ziegler and Brown were arrested in November 2012.

Phoenix recovered and was adopted by one of the Buffalo Small Animal Hospital staff that treated the dog. The puppy was completely covered in burns, with third-degree burns on 30 percent of his body. He required skin grafts. He was reportedly abused in the weeks leading up to the burning.

Ziegler had pleaded guilty and got one year in prison, with another year in prison on a parole violation. Brown, who only got six months and a five year probation was arrested in September 2013 for alleged assault on a female.

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Dog Swallows Over 100 Pennies

New York City, NY - A  cute little Jack Russell Terrier,  appropriately named Jack, swallowed at least $1.11 in change last weekend while his owner, Tim Kelleher, wasn't looking, according to Dr. Amy Zalcman, the senior emergency doctor at BluePearl Veterinary Partners who oversaw Jack's treatment.

Kelleher took Jack to the BluePearl clinic in Manhattan Saturday afternoon after he noticed the pennies were gone and his dog was sick and vomiting.

X-rays performed on the 13-year-old dog immediately showed a collection of pennies inside his body so veterinarians performed an endoscopy, using a camera to locate the pennies.  It took an internal  medicine specialist nearly two hours to remove all of the 111 pennies still left in Jack's system.  The doctor removed them four to five at a time, grabbing them with the scope and placing them in an attached basket, according to Zalcman.

"I would say he's a very lucky dog," she told ABCNews.com.  "First, that we were able to get them all out by scope and not surgery, and that he hasn't had any secondary signs of zinc toxicity."

Owner Kelleher told the New York Daily News his "voracious Tasmanian devil" of a pet was going after a bagel when he got the pennies instead.

"He climbed on my desk to get at the bag with the bagel and knocked the change all over the floor," said Kelleher, who could not be reached today by ABCNews.com.  "While he was licking up the crumbs, he swallowed the pennies."

Zalcman said the zinc pennies could have caused damage to Jack's kidneys, liver and red blood cells and eventually blocked his intestines, especially given the amount that he swallowed.

"We certainly see pennies consumed by dogs but not in this magnitude," she said.  "That's what is so extreme about this case."

Jack's owner said his dog is back to his normal self after the nearly $2,500 procedure, part of which was paid for by Tampa-based Frankie's Friends, an animal charity.

"He's driving me crazy again," Kelleher told the Daily News.



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