A Pretoria businessman accused of dragging his dog behind his car has been fined R4 000 or three months in prison, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Tuesday.
Oupa Seemo was convicted on Monday of animal cruelty. It was found he had tied his Jack Russell dog to the back of his car and dragged it for several kilometres in full view of shocked members of the public in June this year.
After its ordeal, the dog did not have a single pad left under its paws.
Seemo testified on Monday that he had gone to search for his dog after it had slipped out of the gate. When he found the dog, it did not want to come to him.
He fetched a rope and tied it around the dog’s neck and made it run next to the car.
He said the dog wanted to bite him and that was why he did not put the dog in the car.
In addition to his sentence, Seemo has been ordered to perform community service at the Pretoria zoological gardens to see how animals are being cared for and treated. He will do so for 16 hours a month over the next six months.
Before sentencing him, the judge said Seemo had on the day of the incident become the dog’s worst enemy, instead of being its best friend. He told court that what the accused had done to the dog could not be justified. Seemo was also deprived ownership of the dog.
Magistrate Chester Roux dismissed Seemo’s version as untrue and highly improbable.
The dog, who was first called Lamina, then Flikka and eventually Romulus, has been adopted by Helga Anagnostopoulos of Sandton, Johannesburg. — Sapa