GEORGE NEWS - The Garden Route SPCA has laid a charge of cruelty to animals after a group of men in Parkdene allegedly throw a ten-year-old Maltese poodle over a palisade fence where the American Pitbull almost mauled the little dog to death. 

The Maltese had to be put down.

A livid SPCA Senior Inspector Salome Bruyns told the George Herald she received a call on Wednesday 17 January saying that a crowd had gathered in the street at a house in Parkdene where the incident took place. 

"On my arrival I was shocked as some people were visibly upset while others were laughing obviously thinking this was a joke. Fellow inspector Gerda Reynders and I found a ferocious Pitbull in the yard and a seriously injured Maltese lying in its side gasping for breath," said Bruyns.

The gate was locked and the inspectors couldn't enter the premises and radioed the office for back-up. 

"I managed to establish who the owner of the premises is and contacted him at work requesting that he return home immediately." 

With the help of the two back-up inspectors, Henrico Peypers and Robbie Campbell, they managed to put a noose mounted on a stick around the neck of the pitbull. 

Campbell scaled the palisade fence that is topped with barbed wire and retrieved the Maltese. 

"I put the dog down to save it any more pain as it was suffering."

Bruyns said being an SPCA inspector they see many terrible things but this incident will be etched in her mind forever. 

"The sight of people laughing while the dog was suffering is the worst. 

"I think they did it just for kicks. It was sickening."

The shocked owners of both the Pitbull and the Maltese arrived at the premises and were distressed to hear what happened. 

"The owner of the Pitbull had secured his property appropriately and is not to blame."

The case was laid on Tuesday afternoon 23 January and it is now in the hands of the police said Bruyns.

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