This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

Helpless Dog Hung to Death for Kicks by Youths in West Virginia

IMPORTANT UPDATE, April 7: This article has been updated from the original to remove an image of Jacob Ryan Seymour of Mississippi, who has nothing to do with Jacob Ryan of West Virginia. We can personally attest to the fact that Jacob Ryan Seymour of Mississippi is the guardian of very well cared for dogs.

The West Virginia State Police served a juvenile petition on two Alum Creek teens for the hanging of a dog. On Monday, March 27, 2017, photos of a dog hung from a tree with a smiling youth standing in the foreground began to circulate on social media. The caption inserted in the photo read, "Hanging with my dawg." Friends of the youths inadvertently aided in exposing their crime by posting just how entertaining it was to them. We can't let sickening and depraved behavior toward animals happen unchallenged!

State Trooper Lt. Michael Baylous told media that the department investigated the report and found cause to charge the juveniles with felony animal cruelty. Though law enforcement was constrained from revealing the identity of the youths, social media identified one of them as a student at Scott High School in Madison, West Virginia with him sporting the school football jersey with the number 62.

When WSAZ TV CH3 interviewed West Virginia Trooper S.G. Fox, he said that the two youths had admitted to hanging the dog on Saturday, March 25,, 2017, in the Alkol area of Lincoln County. They claimed the dog was a sick stray and that he was going to die (presumably without their "assistance") anyway. It is rumored that the grandmother to one or both of the boys had told them to kill the dog because he was sick.

When dogs are sick, the answer isn't to kill them anymore than it would be to kill the grandmother herself, should she fall ill. The dog should have been taken for veterinary care if their dog, or if it was the case that the dog's guardian could not be located, as it must be pointed out that no-one would want a random neighbor to conclusively determine their animal companion's fate. Finally, if the dog was incurable of whatever ailed him (providing these people would even be able to determine that), this is certainly no properly recognized way to "kill" a dog in our modern day society.

We urge you to join us in asking the Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney to seek the maximum sentence for this senselessly heinous crime. The days of "Boys will be boys" are thankfully over and gone. We now know that sadistic crimes are not a pastime, but a peril to society. Every vulnerable person or animal who happens to be around is at risk when sociopaths have the urge to entertain themselves.

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.