/ 10 October 2006

Man who dragged dog behind car to be sentenced

A Pretoria man who dragged his dog behind his luxury car with a nylon rope earlier this year is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday.

News24 reported that Oupa Jan Seemo (32) of Faerie Glen near Pretoria was convicted of cruelty to animals by the Pretoria Magistrate’s court on Monday.

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. Seemo said the dog wanted to bite him and that was why he did not put the dog in the car.

Magistrate Chester Roux said it was clear Seemo had been very angry that day.

”It seems as if you were so angry that day that you thought: ‘Today is the day I’ll teach the dog a lesson’.”

He 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