Animal cruelty investigation opened as man arrested in central Spain for hanging his dog

The National Police have arrested a man in Ciudad Real in central Spain as he was attempting to kill his own dog by hanging it. The small dog was saved thanks to a 091 call from a neighbour and also an acquaintance of the arrested man. A video, received minutes earlier, showed him with his dog with a rope tied around the dog's neck.

The neighbour suspected the man intended to hang it and alerted the police, who then received a call from another man reporting a man shouting death threats from inside a house. When officers arrived at the property, they asked the now-detained man to open the door, but, when he refused, they were forced to break it down, finding a small dog inside, showing signs of having been harmed.

With the dog's owner literally caught in the act, he fled through the yards and over the rooftops of neighbouring houses. After a police chase across the rooftops, he was arrested as the alleged perpetrator of the crimes of animal abuse, trespassing and disobeying law enforcement. The dog remains in police custody awaiting transfer to an animal shelter.