Rumour confirmed: Puppy bashed in front of distressed students

RUMOUR CONFIRMED

A young woman has witnessed a distressing act of animal cruelty in Melbourne’s south-east, and both the Victoria Police and the RSPCA told her they couldn’t do anything about it.

3AW Breakfast received details of the incident and was told authorities attended but said as the animal had no obvious sign of injury, nothing could be done.

Lily, 17, told Ross and John she was outside Chisholm TAFE in Frankston on Tuesday with a group of friends when a small Staffy puppy (similar to the one pictured above) ran past.

“There was this big bulky guy running after it and he caught the dog just in front of our car,” Lily said.

“He picked it up and started punching it in the face and he saw us looking and aggressively yelled out, ‘What are we looking at?’

“He walked down about 50 metres and put the dog on the ground and started punching it, he took his shoe off and started hitting it with his shoe, he was kicking it and he dragged it about two metres along the ground.”

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Lily called police but when they arrived they said they couldn’t do anything.

“The police checked the dog and the house but because the dog didn’t have any visual injuries it couldn’t be taken off him,” she said.

“They called the RSPCA, but they said the same thing, that it’s hard to take a dog off its owner when there’s no obvious injuries.”

Victoria Police told 3AW Breakfast they responded to reports of a man hitting a dog and attended an address in Finlay Street, Frankston.

They say they spoke to the male owner of the dog, which did not show any injuries.

RSPCA Victoria provided 3AW Breakfast with the following statement.

RSPCA Victoria can confirm that it is working with Victoria Police to investigate community reports of concern for the welfare of a dog at a property in Frankston.

At this stage, we are unable to provide further comment on the matter.