An upsetting video shows what appears to be a woman hitting a dog with a wooden plank, and it doesn't end there.
Later on, she appears to put a container over the chihuahua and kicks it.
You can hear the dog’s yelp from inside.
That chihuahua is named Lady.
She is now in the hands of the county’s animal services.
“She's obvious, you can see she's a little scared. She's a little thin, looks like she has, like, a small bump on her head. Not sure if that's from the incident, but overall condition of the dog, she's recovering well,” said Lieutenant Natalie Harrington with the San Diego Department of Animal Services.
Her owner could face citations or even jail time, as the county's animal services plans on pressing charges.
“When I met with the owner, I asked, ‘Hey, about the video, what happened?
Were you angry at the dog? Why did this incident occur?’ And then, fortunately, their response was, unfortunately, it was unreasonable and unwarranted, but they said that the dog had gone to the bathroom inside and they were angry with the dog,” said Lt. Harrington.
This comes just a month after another video gained attention for animal cruelty in Spring Valley; That one was of a driver dragging a dog behind their vehicle.
“Is there any outreach or anything that we try to do to prevent this from happening? Can we prevent this from happening?” I asked.
“I don't believe that there's anything that we can do necessarily,” said Lt. Harrington. “But in a case like this where there's intentional cruelty or sorry, it appears to be intentional cruelty, I'm not sure that's that's something that we can educate on other than by saying that's wrong.”
Animal Services says if you see cruelty or neglect, to call their office at 619-236-2341 for unincorporated areas so the animals can be protected.
