Reward Reaches $7,500 in Dog Zip-Tie Case

For Immediate Release:
January 14, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

PETA is offering a reward of up to $2,500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction on cruelty charges of the person(s) who fastened a zip tie tightly around a dog’s neck, causing his head to swell to twice its normal size and leaving him with painful injuries around his neck. PETA’s reward is in addition to Crime Stoppers’ offer of a $5,000 reward, bringing the total potential reward up to $7,500.

According to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, a resident reported seeing the blond-and-brown pit bull–cur mix roaming the 16000 block of Blair Avenue on January 8. After a long search, officers were able to retrieve him and remove the zip tie the next day. The dog, now named Bugsy, is believed to be about 3 years old and will be available for adoption once he recovers from his injuries.

Police are investigating this incident, and PETA is asking locals to help spread the word and put up free downloadable posters (available here) in businesses and schools, on bulletin boards, and anywhere else that they’re allowed to display them in the hope that someone will recognize this dog.

“This dog was being strangled by a zip tie that someone put around his neck, and if no one had intervened, he likely would have suffocated or starved to death,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “PETA urges anyone who has information to come forward so that whoever tormented him can be held accountable and stopped from hurting anyone else.”

Tipsters should contact the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office at 352-754-6830 or Crime Stoppers at 1-866-990-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted at HernandoCountyCrimeStoppers.com.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.