Animals often victims of cruelty

Rodger Webb is a pipe fitter and former Marine. Webb is no crier. But cry he did as he stared at the mound of dirt in his back yard that marked the mass grave of his four little dogs. “These were my babies,” Webb said.

A week has passed since someone threw hamburger meat laced with strychnine and antifreeze over the fence at the Webb home in Santa Fe. The toxic cocktail ruptured the intestines and poisoned the organs of all four of the Webb family dogs.

The pint-sized canines had become like brothers and sisters to Rodger and Mary Webb’s only son, Rodger Webb Jr. The dogs bled from the mouth and convulsed for several minutes before dying.

The deaths of the Webb dogs and a few other cases through the years have received media attention and prompted public outrage, but it’s hard to measure how often animals fall victim to human brutality.

Law enforcement officials say they get only a few animal cruelty reports, but admit more probably are undetected and unreported.

“I don’t know if it’s that we just don’t have a lot of animal cruelty in this county or that the horse never complains,” said Lonnie Cox, head of the misdemeanor division in the Galveston County district attorney’s office.

The few cases officers do investigate seldom result in arrests and punishment of animal abusers, officers said. And that’s a problem, animal advocates said, because punishment is the only deterrent, and every animal abuser has the potential to harm people.



A Search for Understanding

Mary Webb let her three dachshunds — Scooter, Missy and Rebel — along with Lady, a rat terrier, out into a fenced yard about 10 a.m. last Saturday.

Forty-five minutes later, Rebel, a homeless dog the family took in two years ago, and Scooter, a rambunctious ballplayer, were dead in the backyard. Gentle Missy and aged, one-eyed Lady died en route to the veterinarian.

Neither the police nor the family has any clue about who would want the dogs dead. “I really can’t understand why somebody would do something like this,” Mary Webb said.

Others also are trying to comprehend. Sheila Rivera heard her dogs’ incessant barking from outside on June 18. Not an unusual thing, but there was something different about the yelps. “There was a sense of urgency to them,” she said.

Once inside her Dickinson home, Rivera checked her dogs, Molly, a Lhasa apso, and Little Bear, a Maltese. They were fine.

JJ, a 9-pound, black and blond, Yorkie-spaniel, was not. She was bleeding from her eye; the eyeball had exploded. “All I could do was scream,” said Rivera, still teary-eyed months later.

The veterinarian’s prognosis grim: the ankle-high pooch’s eye could not be saved. Someone had fired steel shot from a BB gun into the dog’s left eyeball and shot six pellets into its rear end. “I can’t imagine how she must have suffered,” said Rivera. “It gives me chills.”

Some told Rivera that JJ was not worth saving, she said. They told her to put JJ down since her eye would have to be removed. Rivera did what most people who see their animals as family would have.

Five months later, Rivera said it is a decision she does not regret. JJ’s thick mane has covered the socket where a dark brown eye once was.

“This dog loves me regardless … doesn’t care what I look like in the morning when I wake up,” she said. “How could I get rid of her?” Just like the Webbs in Santa Fe, neither Rivera nor Dickinson police know who shot JJ.



Elusive Criminals

Without eyewitness accounts, names and addresses or specific information such as ballistic reports, it’s almost impossible to find animal abusers, said Santa Fe Police Chief Barry Cook. It is easier to find their victims, although it is often too late.

Such is the case of the mutilated Santa Fe dog found in the middle of the road last year with a swastika painted on its carcass. Or the dead bobcat found at Clear Creek High School last week that died from head trauma; its mouth and rectum were stuffed with cigarettes.

There are no leads in this case, either. “These cases are scary because if they do it to an animal, they can do it to a human,” said Sarah Souter, superintendent of animal control in League City.

No arrests and fewer leads mark the 20 animal abuse calls Santa Fe police have received during the past two years. The same is true for the five reported in Dickinson during the past two years.

With nothing to go on in the Santa Fe case but the poisoned meat and some footprints found by the Webbs’ son, catching whoever committed the crime will be difficult.

“I could only imagine if my puppy dog ended up getting killed like that,” Cook said. “The whole thing is just senseless, in my opinion, but without evidence, it’s just plain hard to make a case.”

Santa Fe police have beefed up patrols in the area. The department has issued a plea for information about the dogs’ killers. “We don’t take this sort of thing lightly,” Cook said.

Neither has Rodger Webb, who is getting measurements for a new fence for the front of his yard. Cowards killed his dogs, he said. He has broadcast his sentiments on large plywood signs in the front of his home. And in the same way human cruelty took his dogs’ lives, he is hoping human nature will make someone turn in the animal killers.

“Money is a motivator,” he said. What was once an $1,100 reward for information leading to an arrest has jumped to $1,250. Neighbors, friends and even complete strangers have dropped off donations to sweeten the pot. But many cases do not have rewards and unless heinous in nature, do not receive much attention.



Horses Scream

No newspaper reporters or television cameras were around when Jerry Finch and his staff at Habitat for Horses went out to rescue Ziggy, a dingy white gelding, from a field in Texas City.

So neglected and starved was the horse that his neck was scarred from trying to reach over a barbed-wire fence for a pinch of grass. His rib cage and hipbones were clearly seen through his mangled coat.

A normal horse Ziggy’s age should have weighed about 900 pounds, said Finch, who operates the nonprofit horse habitat in Hitchcock. Ziggy weighed 600 pounds.

“Another three weeks and he would have been dead,” Finch said. “Horses scream when they are dying. It’s heartbreaking.”

David Smith, director of animal control for the county’s health district, said people reported cases of animal abuse in Texas City “quite frequently.” He helped seize Ziggy and works to get horses into the rehabilitation center Finch runs.

But the cycle continues. “It’s tough to get a conviction for animal cruelty,” he said. “It really depends on how badly the animal’s been treated and how seriously the citizenry of a particular area takes animal abuse. Some places, there’s just no tolerance, but in some places, they just don’t take it very seriously.”



Serious Consequences

Cox takes it seriously. As head of the of the district attorney’s office misdemeanor division, there is no reluctance on his part to see the perpetrators of crimes against animals punished. The problem is that few cases of animal cruelty actually make it across his desk.

In the eight years Cox has worked in the district attorney’s office, he said there might have been two or three cases that went to trial. Others usually take a plea, which Cox does not view as a cop out against tougher law enforcement. Those plea numbers are still small, and Cox said the punishment often is predicated on public response.

“We know that the public looks at those as intently as any other kinds of cases,” said Cox. One of the more sensational animal cruelty cases occurred in Galveston last month when police reported that six boys stoned a cat to death. The case has received media attention from around the world. The boys, ages 10 to 11, have been charged with animal cruelty and are awaiting arraignment.

State animal cruelty charges range anywhere from a Class A misdemeanor up to a state jail felony, said Cox. Repeat offenders, those with two prior convictions for animal cruelty, could face a third-degree felony charge.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has joined a chorus of animal lovers that call for full prosecution of the boys.

Finch, whose organization rehabilitates horses and facilitates their adoption, said the only way to end the cycle of abuse is to pursue the perpetrators.

Several of the Galveston boys’ parents have denied that their sons killed the cat. They claim dogs apparently attacked the stray, black cat, and the boys were tossing rocks at the cat to see if it was still alive.

Joel Caldwell, the Galveston Police Department officer who investigated the case, works part-time on a new department program, which focuses on the abuse and neglect of animals.

The program, which began in March, has netted nine misdemeanor charges and seven felony charges, including the six felony charges against the boys.

Caldwell does not think the abuse of animals is a big problem in Galveston, “but it’s something that needs our attention.”



In Defense of the Defenseless

Wydell Dixon takes in abused and neglected cats and dogs to Whiskerville Animal Sanctuary, a rescue and adoption center she runs in Texas City. It will take a human effort to stop the abuse of animals, she said.

“If people would just gear up and band together, we could make a difference,” she said.

Dixon says she sees abuse and severe neglect of animals often. “These animals don’t know any better,” she said. “God expects our intervention. I think it is a sin not to take care of and intervene in what God has put here for us to take care of.”

Finch said animal abuse is about power. “It’s about having power over another living thing,” he said. The connection between animal cruelty and human violence cannot be ignored, say activists groups such as PETA and the Human Society of the United States. Animal education and human activism must be a part of shedding more light on animal cruelty.

These groups also lobby that psychological help become mandatory across the country for all those convicted of animal abuse. Only three states — Rhode Island, Missouri and Vermont — require all animal offenders to undergo therapy. Texas requires only juvenile animal offenders to receive psychological counseling.

In a letter to the Galveston County district attorney’s office, PETA wrote that mental health professionals and law enforcement officials consider cruelty to animals as a possible indicator of a child’s behavior as an adult. They cite a study that says 36 percent of murderers interviewed by federal law enforcement said they abused animals as youngsters.

The 2001 Report of Animal Cruelty Cases from the national humane society is a snapshot of reported animal cruelty cases from January to December 2001. The report says that 88 percent of all animal abuse is committed against companion and farm animals. Beating and torture made up 35 percent of the types of offenses; poisoning made up 3 percent.



Stain on Society

Mahatma Gandhi said you could judge the evolution of a society by the way it treats its animals. If that is true, James Earp must not think society is too civilized now.

On the morning of Nov. 2, Earp, a San Leon resident, found his family’s two German shepherds dead. “It’s a hard loss,” said Earp about the deaths of Bud, 10, and Prince, 4.

Earp believes a neighbor killed his dogs with rat poison because they had been barking at night. “Just because a dog barks doesn’t mean you should kill it,” said Earp. The neighbor has denied the claim.

Prince belonged to Earp’s 9-year-old son, Jake, who recently was diagnosed with diabetes. “We didn’t do anything that Saturday and Sunday but sit around and cry,” said Earp, an auto mechanic.

Rivera does not let JJ or her other two dogs out of the house alone anymore. Neither do the Webbs, who have two new dogs. One was a dachshund someone dropped by the family’s home.

“I don’t think anything ever dies,” said Mary Webb. “I think you have to go on loving to get over the hurt.” The attack on Rivera’s JJ has brought a new companion into her life. “I used to live alone, but now I live with a shotgun,” she said.

Cox, prosecutor, said the crimes involved victims that are helpless. “The complaining witnesses just don’t speak,” said Cox. “In so many ways, the animals are defenseless. They can’t even ask for help, and that’s what makes it particularly cruel.”


Staff writers Carolina Amengual, Jerry Urban and Scott Williams contributed to this report.