Happiness is a warm puppy. I had always remembered that phrase from the popular comic Peanuts. I was at Eureka’s second annual Woofstock fundraiser for the Sequoia Humane Society on a video production assignment, and dogs were everywhere. The visions of ecstatic dogs, young and old, greeted me wherever I went. As I peered into the expressive eyes of a young canine in front of me, I was reminded of how little it takes for a dog to be content. Lucy, a precocious black lab, bounded back and forth with her tail swishing, waiting and pleading for a hand to indulge her need for attention. A pair of legs finally bent down, and as a hand reached down to caress her ebony head, it was as if she smiled. With her energy level in orbit, she headed for another direction, not caring about the restrictions of a leash. Neither did she seem hindered by the fact that she only had three full legs. Her left hind leg was nothing more than a stump.

Roughly three months ago, Lucy almost lost her life. With her rear leg mutilated, she and her seven other siblings were abandoned by the owners of her mother. Although Lucy was recovered, the seven other puppies were not so lucky. Throats were slit and skulls were crushed. Lucy was found a short distance from her siblings, a mass of fur and blood dumped alongside a jogging trail. Sherman Schapiro, a Blue Lake city councilman, found the dead puppies and Lucy, barely moving, but alive. “I heard a sound to my left, it sounded so mournful and when I looked down, there was a mass of dead puppies lying there with fur and blood everywhere,” Schapiro said. “When I went to go bury the puppies, I heard that same mournful cry, and just five feet away was a puppy, hiding in the shadows of a giant redwood stump.” A shivering Lucy was rushed to a vet and brought back to normal health.

Lucy’s case was one of abandonment and mutilation, both classifications the most common of abuse cases. Twenty-nine percent of animal abuse cases are classified as neglect or abandonment, according to the Animal Abuse Registration Database Administration System. Sixteen percent of animal abuse cases are classified as mutilation or torture. Nearly half of the pet abuse cases tried in California in the past five years have been dog-related, several classified as neglect, mutilation, and bestiality, according to Pet-abuse.com. In 2002, another dog abuse case in Humboldt County was heavily covered in the media, where a 56-year-old woman pled guilty to neglecting her starving dog, who had died of extreme malnutrition.

According to Lieutenant Steve Knight of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office division of Animal Control, the rise of media coverage of dog abuse cases acted as a conduit for change. “In the last six months, we’ve seen a lot of media coverage of significant animal abuse cases. When patterns like this start to rise, it really raises community awareness,” said Knight. He also referred to a basic concept that animals, especially of the domestic type, represent all that is pure and uncorrupted. “Animals typically have presumptions of innocence and I think the public has a real connection to that.” The “real connection” to these puppies was obvious as animal-rights activists came to the Humboldt County Courthouse for the sentencing of the accused puppy murderers.

One could cut the tension in the room with a knife. The air was thick with the sounds of nervous mumbling and people impatiently shifting their weight from one foot to the other. Hundreds of animal-rights activists scrunched themselves around the boundaries of the courtroom, awaiting a decision. Toward the front of the room, Paul Curtright was silent as he awaited the decision regarding his dog Stout, the mother of the murdered puppies. Superior Court Judge Christopher Wilson spoke. Curtright would not only be denied custody of Stout, but would not be allowed to have a pet for the next three years. A collective sigh of relief filled the room. Smiles and tears appeared on the faces of the activists, while Curtright expressed silent discontent with the outcome. Meanwhile, in a later case, Adam Curtright, the man who confessed to killing the puppies, received five years of formal felony probation.

In his defense, Curtright claimed that the puppies had “parvo,” a contagious canine disease, and he believed that he was “doing the right thing.” However Kathleen Kistler, executive director of the Sequoia Humane Society, said that because dogs are so trusting, people often think they have the right to take control over their pets in such a fashion. “If you look back at history from a utilitarian standpoint, dogs were basically used as tools,” Kistler said. “I think there is still a sense up here and everywhere that dogs are secondary to humans.” At the Sequoia Humane Society, Kistler continues to see cases of animal abuse. “We still get 6 to 10 abuse reports a week.” Of all the elements that could lead to dog abuse, Kistler insisted that lack of education is the number one cause. “It is ignorance, people just repeat their patterns,” Kistler said. “People just don’t know any better.”

A growing concern regarding animal abuse was that some young animal abusers may grow to treat their fellow humans the same. On pet-abuse.com the following was stated under the heading of The Abuse Connection: “The line separating an animal abuser from someone capable of committing human abuse is much finer than most people care to consider.” Lieutenant Knight agreed. “We have had cases where criminals abused animals at a young age, then they went on to humans.” It is this connection that prompts organizations like the Animal Legal Defense Fund to push for more stringent penalties. “I think people who abuse animals should be getting more punishment then they get now,” said Animal Legal Defense Fund attorney Dana Campbell. “Whether people kill two-legged or four-legged beings, harsher punishments for these criminals is a step in the right direction.”

Six months after Lucy was discovered barely alive, Lucy found herself in my apartment with her new owner, Eva Jansen. They had taken time out from their schedule to come talk to me on their way back from canine obedience school. Considerably bigger and stronger than she was at Woofstock, Lucy hopped around my kitchen, sniffing under the table, still a bit hyperactive from her training session in Blue Lake. From the look of it, her missing hind leg did not seem to inconvenience her in the least. I chatted with Eva as we watched Lucy scamper from the kitchen to the couch in the living room. I asked Eva if Lucy had any trouble with obedience training after the ordeal she’s been through. She proudly shook her head. Jansen has another dog and a cat, with whom Lucy gets along just fine.

As I took a picture of Jansen comfortably embracing Lucy, I noticed, along with Lucy’s fascination with my camera, a sparkle in her eyes, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before she would bound out the door and down the steps with her energy in orbit once more.