Photo courtesy of Little Rock Animal Village

KRISHA WILLIAMS TURBEVILLE

Turbo, a gray-and-white great dane, often complains about wanting outside to find his new family, staff at Little Rock Animal Village say. After months of recovery from starvation and abuse, Turbo won’t have to wait much longer.

The shelter is sponsoring an essay contest to choose the perfect home for the dog whose owner was the first person in Pulaski County to be charged with felony animal abuse, says Tracy Roark, manager of Little Rock Animal Services.

“This is an amazing dog,” Roark says. “It is what animal welfare is all about, a dog that has had a bad bad life now with a chance to live out the rest of his life in a loving home. Makes me proud of what we can do.” (more…)

THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A homeless man used a kitchen knife to stab the throat of a puppy, killing it, as he burglarized a southwest Little Rock house early Wednesday, taking only a deck of cards and a ball cap emblazoned with a skull, police said.

As detectives led Adam Lee Waller, 28, to a police truck headed to the Pulaski County jail, a television news cameraman asked him whether he was guilty.

“Man, I didn’t kill any f *****g dog, no!” Waller said. (more…)

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Two Johnson County women charged with felony animal cruelty for running a mass dog breeding operation were sentenced to probation and given fines after they pleaded no contest to all eight counts against them.

Deputy prosecutor Bruce Wilson said Christine Yarrington, 60, and Lynn Burkett, 51, were sentenced Wednesday in Johnson County Circuit Court to five years’ probation and were fined $1,500 each, plus court costs.

They also were prohibited from having any animals in their possession and were ordered to undergo counseling on proper ownership and treatment of animals, Wilson said. (more…)

THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A Pulaski County Quorum Court committee wants Public Works Director Sherman Smith to study implementing a pet-licensing program to encourage people to spay and neuter animals in an effort to reduce strays in unincorporated areas and those being euthanized by North Little Rock.

Steve Goss, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he added the issue to the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting after a good friend who volunteers at the North Little Rock animal shelter at Burns Park lamented over how many animals were being euthanized there.

In 2009, North Little Rock’s animal shelter in Burns Park took in 1,863 dogs and 1,148 cats from North Little Rock, said Billy Grace, North Little Rock’s animal control director. Another 656 dogs and 116 cats were brought in from the county, for a total of 3,783 animals. (more…)

THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A Lonoke woman who police said abandoned a pair of young great Danes when she moved out of Little Rock faces two counts of felony animal cruelty after her arrest Monday, the first Pulaski County case filed under a law that took effect last summer.

Little Rock animal-control officer Ryan Williford, 22, found a female named Las Vegas and a male named Duce emaciated and abandoned on March 16 in the back yard of 514 Mimi Lane.

Diagnosed with severe anemia, Las Vegas was unable to walk. She died two days later during a blood transfusion. An autopsy found she also suffered from “heavy hookworm parasitism,” according to a Little Rock police affidavit. (more…)

JULIE STEWART
SPECIAL TO THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A woman serving a jail term for animal cruelty will be back in court next month.

Tammy Christine Hanson, 43, is scheduled for trial Jan. 6 in Baxter County District Court on seven misdemeanor charges, including theft and evidence tampering.

Her trial was set for Wednesday but was moved because of a scheduling conflict in the prosecutor’s office, a District Court spokesman said. (more…)

MIKE LINN
THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A Drew County jury has acquitted a Monticello-area man in the August beating death of a Shetland pony, attorneys said Thursday.

Benjamin Briney, 20, was one of the first Arkansans charged under the state’s new felony aggravated-animal-cruelty law.

Briney testified to the jury Wednesday that he beat the pony to death with a baseball bat, although he said the pony’s owner had suggested he put the pony down by injecting it with a needle full of air, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Zach Vaughn said. (more…)

TEXARKANA GAZETTE

PRESCOTT — The recent death of a 2-year-old boy motivated the Prescott City Council last week to approve an ordinance banning pit bull dogs from the city, said Mayor Howard Taylor.

The ordinance makes Prescott the fifth town in southwest Arkansas to ban the dogs. (more…)

KRISHA WILLIAMS TURBEVILLE

RESCUE IN THE ROCK

The Stone County sheriff’s office continues to investigate the removal Thursday of 25 horses from the O.K. Trading Post in Mountain View.

The Humane Society of the United States, along with the Stone County sheriff’s office, The Rescue Wranglers and the Humane Society of Missouri removed the horses from the trail riding business on Highway 14 Thursday. (more…)

DAVE HUGHES
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

CLARKSVILLE — Two Johnson County women have been charged with felony cruelty to animals after a large dog-breeding operation was discovered earlier this month, authorities said.

Christine Yarrington, 60, and Lynn Elise Burkett, 51, both of rural Lamar, were each charged in Johnson County Circuit Court on Thursday with eight counts of aggravated cruelty to animals. Authorities previously had not identified the women. (more…)

THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

JULIE STEWART
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

MOUNTAIN HOME — An old-fashioned law enforcement tool helped authorities catch William and Tammy Hanson, who officials said were on the run for more than three years in a notorious animal cruelty case in Baxter County.

Tipsters turned them in, officials said Wednesday. (more…)

JULIE STEWART
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

MOUNTAIN HOME — Tammy Christine Hanson was returned to Baxter County late Friday after nearly four years on the run in an animal-cruelty case that gained national notoriety.

Authorities were also seeking the return of her husband, William Hanson, 44, from a jail in Johnson County, Mo. (more…)

CAROLYNE PARK
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

The barn stall wasn’t the sterile, well-equipped hospital operating room Dr. Pamela Howard was used to, and the 680-pound patient on the floor was a long stretch from her usual patients in the burn center at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

But the wounds were familiar. As a burn and trauma surgery specialist, she knows them well. (more…)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LITTLE ROCK — Authorities say a 3-year-old horse was critically injured when it was dragged down the road in Independence County.

The man driving the truck has been arrested for driving while intoxicated and Humane Society officials want him also charged with animal cruelty. (more…)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOUNTAIN HOME— Feral hog populations in Arkansas are growing, and wildlife officials are concerned about the damage the animals are doing to wilderness areas.

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Officer Chris Majors said damage by the hogs is evident in all 75 counties in the state. (more…)

BY NOEL E. OMAN

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

The Arkansas Criminal Justice Institute is working to ensure that police officers, sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors are up to speed on the new animal cruelty law.

The institute has been meeting this summer with law enforcement officials and other parties in developing a protocol to prepare and prosecute abuse cases under the new law, thanks to a $250,000 grant from the state through Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who helped shepherd the bill through the Legislature this year. (more…)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOUNTAIN HOME — A woman who failed to show up in February 2006 for sentencing on 20 counts of animal cruelty has been arrested in Vermont, Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said Sunday.

Tammy Christine Hanson, 42, was arrested Saturday in Sutton, in northeastern Vermont, by Caledonia County Sheriff Michael Bergeron, according to Montgomery. (more…)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JONESBORO — David and Ty Smith have driven thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars of their own money transporting dogs from the Jonesboro Animal Control shelter to rescue societies outside of Arkansas.

They have transported nearly 300 dogs in the two years they’ve been affiliated with the department. (more…)

DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF
AND WIRE REPORTS

Federal authorities have arrested about 30 people and seized about 350 dogs in dogfighting raids Wednesday across six states including Arkansas, the Justice Department said.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which cooperated in the investigation, said the target of the raids was believed to be the largest dogfighting operation in U.S. history. (more…)

KRISTIN NETTERSTROM
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Free-roaming cats would have to be sterilized and microchipped to continue their wandering, under an ordinance Little Rock directors are scheduled to vote on Tuesday.

The capital city wants to update various animal laws, increasing the fee for keeping a “dangerous” dog from $100 to $150 and adding a section on how to deal with dangerous cats. (more…)