..I would say that holding the head of a struggling dog or any living thing under water while they are gasping to breathe is a fairly torturous thing...and the cutting of the dog's neck open..the back of her neck..?..I don't think was 'media effect' but what his own words were in his statement ...

..also I think that I read in one of the articles what Annie said...digging around under the skin as using his words/part of his own description...

The word torture implies an intent to cause suffering or pain rather than an intent to kill. I'm also far form convinced that people don't know that they're being deliberately emotive when they choose to say "cut the dog open" rather than "cut out the microchip".

I'll overlook that you didn't mention Kirk specifically stating "disembowelled" because, to be fair, his imagery of some sort of carefully prepared execution just deserves to be overlooked.

..well there again TS, you're analysing people as you have this man, which is fine we all do that to some extent with topics and news stories etc.. but then you (appear) to believe your analysis and psychology as 'fact' or something that you seem to get frustrated with if others don't agree with you...and that then causes analysis of them and why you think they don't agree...

..and as is sadly often the way, other members are 'named' as well which has no bearing on anything said directly to you, in response to any of your views..and just for me personally is part of what makes these threads so difficult to post in...I mean SD threads in general and maybe..?...could be why other members also feel that they don't want to 'venture out' off chat and games that much to post their views and then when they do on something, it's that they somehow have strange priorities...so I think for the moment anyway, I'll leave the thread and go and do what I was meant to be doing anyway this morning....

I don't believe it to be fact but I am confident that it's accurate. There's a subtle difference. But I'm not someone who prefaces things with "I might be wrong but" or "in my opinion", because in my opinion ( :hehe: ), it's boring and weak. If other people are more comfortable doing so, that's their prerogative.

Errrrrrrrrr this specifically did not happen until you said in response to me;

Sooo... yeah. It had a bearing on that, as examples of why I believed the above to be wrong.

I can't believe people have sympathy for this man, it wasn't a case of him just snapping one day, it was obviously premeditated. Would ANYONE have thought to remove the micro chip if they had just snapped? No, they wouldn't.

Instead of reporting the neighbours and letting the authorities decide whether they were mistreating the dog he went ahead and killed it callously. People have gone to prison for less and it's shocking and wrong that he avoided jail time.

.

How was it "obviously" premeditated? And again (again, and again) he removed the chip AFTER killing the dog not BEFORE so it has absolutely no relevance to whether or not he had snapped when he actually killed it. None at all. Disposing of the dog and covering up the act was planned, and carried out in a way that some might consider mercenary. That's a completely different discussion.

I'd say if it was "premeditated" he would have had a solid plan for disposing of the dog afterwards, rather than failing to do so twice and ultimately being found with it on his property. That strongly suggests that he hadn't thought it through at all.

It all seemed pretty premeditated to me, surely if he was in such a blind rage he wouldn't have thought to drown the dog? If he had snapped surely he would have just strangled it or kill it in a more direct (and quick) fashion? Filling up a bucket to drown a dog when you've 'snapped' doesn't sound right.

Just because he was incompetent when it came to the cover up doesn't mean it wasn't premeditated. Everything about this case is cut and dry, there is no defending this man.

:clap1::clap1::clap1:

I definitely don't think it's acceptable, somewhere buried right at the start of the thread I did say that I feel bad for the dog, I genuinely DO like dogs (although I don't humanise them or their emotions) and I think the whole story is tragic. I actually had a border terrier when I was younger that looked just like that one, funnily enough. I like to think also that I could and would never harm a dog in any way, I really don't think I would, but I know enough about psychology to state that you CAN'T be sure. No one can. We like to think we can, but we just can't. It's like people reading or watching documentaries about dementia and turning to their partner who they love with all of their heart and saying, "I would never forget you!". They believe it with their entire soul but the truth is... if they get dementia, they're going to forget that person. If someone (anyone, the gentlest person you know) suffers an acute temporary psychotic break, they have the potential to turn violent. It's scary but it IS fact.

So I'm just not naive enough to think that I or anyone else is immune from mental breakdown. I, like anyone, like to believe that it's unthinkable that I could drown a dog. Maybe a cat, but never a dog. But people break. And when they do they need help, not punishment.

I just wish more people took the time to try to understand what has actually happened (in every situation) even though, as you say, getting an exact picture is impossible. No one 100% knows what happened apart from the man who did it, and even he might not.

"yeah big error to think of something that may bring some happiness to their disabled daughter, Arista... "

But it failed - the yapping dog just went on yapping
Massive Error

I don't actually know the answer to this because I haven't read much more than the initial articles but, is it stated anywhere that he filled a bucket? It seems quite plausible to me that there was a bucket already full in the garden.

Absolutely 1,000% correct.

True loss of reason, temper - call it what T.S will - would mean -- as you say -- that he battered/strangled/killed the poor defencless dog EXACTLY where it was --- over the garden fence.

No WAY would he have gone to all those coldly calculated lengths to covertly abduct it and carry it to his shed etc. sordid etc.

I admit that I have lost my temper in packed nightclubs when I was constantly hassled by dickheads wanting to fight me, but I did not coolly entice them outside in some dark alley where they were no CCTV cameras or witnesses - I let go there and then in an admitted rage.

Not 'pre-meditated' my arse.

:clap1::clap1::clap1:

But Dezzy - Every Case is not the same.
so its not that shocking

I made a mess of that last post... It looks like I replied to you with a dot :laugh:
The guy stressed himself out to such an extent his anxiety gave him a heart attack... this wasn't some usually calm rational man, it was a man with manifested internal and external rage.
You would have thought that following his attack he would seek to reduce his anxiety levels by more positive means such as meditation or yoga than killing small animals.

Absolutely spot on.

Perfect post Dezzy, you are spot on.

To clarify....I did say digging around under the skin because that is what he would have had to do. Dispite what you said in a post that you can feel microchips....I have had many animals (including a border ) who have been microchipped and my cats are presently. I have never been ble to feel them...and I've checked with the cats so to find their chips you would have to dig around under the skin.

...I'll do a link to the DM article which had things in it that I hadn't known and obviously it's the words of the family but there were a few things that stood out for me, there is also a pic showing the two properties in relation to each other because the properties aren't actually next door as such but backing on to each other with a big paddock between them....


‘The worst part is, we don’t even know if he’s sorry for drowning Meg, because he’s never once apologised to us. What he did was shameful and I think he deserved a custodial sentence. I was praying for it.

‘My only consolation is that he has now been suspended from flying pending an investigation, although I think it’s appalling that he was still allowed to fly in the five months between his guilty plea and sentencing. If someone can snap over a barking dog, what about a crying baby on a flight?’




While most public support has gone to the Boddingtons, Woodhouse is not without a certain degree of sympathy. Many others have described the ordeal of living next door to barking dogs and owners who remain deaf to the endless yapping.

B ut Alan retorts: ‘I’m not saying Meg didn’t bark, but it’s not as if she was some big guard dog snarling at everyone. She was the most sweet-natured little dog and it wasn’t excessive.

‘If it bothered him so much, he should have said something to us and we would have done something about it. A couple of years before Meg died, we were chatting over the fence and he said, “She doesn’t half bark, that dog of yours”, but it was never mentioned again.’

Alison adds: ‘Other neighbours who live much closer to us have never once complained about Meg’s barking. We never left our dogs in the garden all day and if we felt they were being too noisy, we’d bring them in.’

Alison shows me a number of signed witness statements neighbours provided to the RSPCA stating their opinion that Meg was not a nuisance and did not bark excessively.

And although Woodhouse claimed he had complained to the council about her barking, no evidence of this was produced in court.

Alison shows me an aerial photograph of the two properties in Long Buckby. Far from living cheek-by-jowl, there’s a 120ft paddock separating the Boddingtons’ land from Woodhouse’s home and garden.

She says she could understand if they lived in adjoining terrace houses, but they don’t. As for noise, she claims the racket from Woodhouse’s ride-on lawnmower was just as annoying to them.




Soon a local team of volunteers had descended to help the Boddington’s search, responding to a plea made by Alexandra on a lost dogs website, and unaware that Meg was already dead.

‘That evening I noticed Steve tending their chickens in the paddock and I called him over to ask if they’d checked for Meg, but he seemed very reluctant to speak which I thought was odd,’ says Alison.



The hunt for Meg continued.

‘We were searching every day from dawn until 11.30pm. Then Alexandra would drive out to search again in the middle of the night without telling us because she couldn’t sleep, worrying about Meg,’ says Alison.

Alan adds: ‘Two days after Meg’s disappearance, I was sitting outside our local pub with a client when I saw Steve walking with his wife towards us. He looked very uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to talk to me.

‘Then, reluctantly it seemed to me, he came over and said, “Any luck with finding Meg?” He was acting so strangely, and sounded so nervous, I thought maybe Alison was right after all.’




Their suspicions were confirmed when, later that day, Alison went to their neighbours’ house to speak to them again and, realising they were out, opened the unlocked boot of Woodhouse’s car — the one her husband had sold him — on a hunch.

‘There was no mistaking Meg’s fur in the boot of Steve’s car and I felt sick when I saw the knife and rope,’ says Alison. ‘I was in a terrible state and didn’t know what to do, so I called Alan and we decided to call the police.’

When police questioned Woodhouse, he denied all involvement, but eventually admitted he’d taken the dog because of her barking, dumping her a couple of miles away.

Thinking Meg was still alive, volunteers scoured the area he mentioned, but could find no trace. Five days later, after Alison had tearfully begged for the truth, Woodhouse finally called police and admitted what he’d done.



Alison says Meg’s body was handed over to police by her neighbour, but was so badly decomposed, the cause of death could not be determined. The court heard Woodhouse recovered the corpse from a hedgerow after Alison mentioned Meg’s microchip and — fearing it worked like a tracker device, tried to dig it out with a knife.

‘We were devastated. To lose a cherished pet is a huge blow, but to find out Meg had suffered and died in that horrific manner was unbearable,’ says Alison. ‘If I hadn’t discovered Meg’s fur in the boot of his car, we might never have found out what had happened to her.



..it feels strange that she only popped out for 15 minutes and then found Meg gone but the other family dog still there and feels more planned in possibly seeing her leave ...also that no other neighbours have confirmed the incessant barking and that there are no reports of the barking/unreasonable noise levels recorded to the Council, which he had said he had done...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...tell-side.html

Well, well, well, well, well - Thank you Ammi.

Looks like you were right to say 'digging around under the skin' Annie in light of Ammi's excellent update. Seems like the bastard re-visited the dog's corpse to frantically dig out the chip -ONLY after learning about it AFTER he'd dumped the dead body.

A slight, precise surgical incision my arse.

Well THAT is not the actions of someone who 'snapped' is it? seems he really is a heartless twat,that dog must have struggled so much and this cold ,calculated bastard just holds it's head under,there are no words for this pond life except maybe just 'die'.

You are right,my Dog is microchipped and I cannot feel it, I know where it was put but still cannot find it just by feeling.
It can only be located accurately with a scanner.