8 Cases Of Extreme Animal Cruelty That You Should Absolutely Not Read If You Love Animals

1. Cats Cooked In Microwave Ovens

This practice appears to be a trend in England, as all three stories detailed here occurred in that soggy, foggy nation.

In 2010, a black-and-white cat named Roxy was placed into a microwave oven for ten seconds and emerged from it “smoking.” She was then shoved into a laundry dryer, yanked out of it, and dunked into a bowl of water. It was all filmed on a mobile phone by two teenage boys and a middle-aged man. All three were sentenced for animal cruelty. Roxy survived.

In 2012, 19-year-old Jamie Blake, a red-haired British male with psychiatric problems, befriended a cat he called “Buddy” and kept it with him at a homeless shelter. He told officials that he heard the cat begin talking to him, telling him that his mother’s dead ex-lover was shooting his mom up with heroin. Blake placed the cat in a microwave oven for three minutes, at which point it was dead. Young Mr. Blake was sentenced to four weeks in jail.

Earlier this year, a 23-year-old British woman named Laura Cunliffe reportedly discovered that her kitten named “Mowgli” had eaten her goldfish. Cunliffe would later recall that she “looked at the cat and thought, ‘You evil fucking bitch,'” whereupon she placed it in a microwave oven for at least a minute. With the cat’s internal organs cooked, Cunliffe retrieved it from the microwave, at which point the kitten began “screeching” for roughly 90 minutes until it died. Her defense lawyer claimed she was mentally ill and had ceased taking her medication because “the Queen had told her not to.” Cunliffe was jailed for 14 weeks.

2. Puppy Named “Peanut” Kidnapped, Tortured, And Decapitated

In 2008, a pair of Australian men kidnapped a fox terrier puppy named “Peanut” in the middle of the night, took him to a park behind some rodeo grounds, and recorded themselves slashing him with a knife and garden shears, amputating two of his legs and severing his nose before finally decapitating him. They reportedly laughed throughout the video. One of the two men, Jonathon Blake, had previously been convicted of sex crimes. He allegedly had a falling out with Peanut’s female owner and tortured the dog as an act of revenge. It was described as “the worst case of animal cruelty in Australian history.”

3. Pit Bull Puppies Dragged Behind Cars

Late in 2011, a female pit bull puppy in Missouri named “Cricket” was dragged by its leash outside a van as its owner, 43-year-old Keith John Parker, drove while plastered on vodka. Cricket suffered scraped fur, a swollen snout, and lost one of her claws. Parker was sentenced to 93 days in jail; a police officer adopted Cricket.

Early in 2012, a male pit bull puppy in Kentucky named “Trooper” had his leash attached to the back of a pickup truck and was “dragged…for nearly a mile down Interstate 55.” According to a director of a local Humane Society, “He could barely sit upon his own. He was extremely weak from blood loss, certainly having gone through what he went through.” Trooper survived and was put up for adoption.

4. Tasmanian Possums Hunted, Tortured, And Exploded

In what a newspaper referred to as “the worst case of animal cruelty ever prosecuted in Tasmania,” two young men pleaded guilty to hunting possums late in 2009 and filming themselves as they stabbed and clubbed them to death. “To make matters worse,” an official with the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said, “they either burnt them by spraying aerosol cans on them with a lighter like a homemade flamethrower, or they exploded them. They actually inserted aerosol cans and bound sparklers and fuel into the cavity of the deceased possum and then poured fuel over them, walked away and threw a match, and they exploded.”

5. Man Laughs While Tearing Kitten’s Head Off

In January of 2010, New Zealander David Hamuera Snook was sentenced to 28 months in prison. Drunk, he had gone to a former lover’s house, argued with her, grabbed the family kitten, and ripped its head off while laughing. A judge called his action “callous, brutal, and cruel. … The kitten had one life, and you took it.”

6. Woman Kills Cat In Washing Machine Set On “Boil”

In 2005, a British mother of three named Holly Thacker, allegedly furious that her cat “Fluffy” had scratched her, grabbed the animal, shoved it into a washing machine, set the water temperature at “boil,” and allowed it to spin around for 10 minutes until it died. A veterinarian who examined Fluffy’s corpse stated that the cat must have struggled for its life because its claws were shredded. Thacker received a jail sentence of only six weeks.

7. Dog Shot 40 Times In Head, Buried Alive

A female crossbreed dog in Malta named “Star” made international headlines in 2011 after animal-rescue officers, investigating a separate case, heard her whimpering. They found her “beneath a wooden board with a tree stump placed on top of it to weigh it down.” Her legs had been tied together and she had been buried alive up to her head—which had been shot forty times with a pellet gun. She survived for roughly a month before succumbing to acute pancreatic inflammation.

8. Woman Tortures And Kills Dozens Of Dogs And Cats In Front Of Her Kids

In 2011 a Long Island mother of seven, Sharon McDonough, was sentenced to two years in prison for child and animal abuse. She had hosted what her adult son called “a concentration camp for animals.”

McDonough allegedly forbade her younger children from using the bathroom, instead demanding that they urinate and defecate in a bucket. She would kidnap neighborhood cats and dogs, forcing her kids to hold them down as she’d tape the animals’ mouths and noses shut before watching them slowly die. Police found 42 dog carcasses in her backyard.

Her adult son, Douglas McDonough, was the one who informed authorities of his mother’s activities. In a letter to prosecutors, he wrote:

As one who has witnessed his “mother” choke the life out of a living animal and physically and emotionally abuse and destroy her own children, I know what she is capable of doing. I fear for my well-being, my sisters and my six-month old child. She has already destroyed us to a certain point.