Puppy thrown out of car with tail on fire

At 7pm on Thursday July 16th, The Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals received an emergency phone call concerning “a puppy that had been thrown from a car containing four men, with its tail on fire”.

“The animal had been urinated on, its tail was badly damaged and it was terrified,” a spokeswoman for the DSPCA said.

She said that, fortunately, some young local children were present and they called the DSPCA, which brought the puppy to the its mobile veterinary clinic where it was seen by a vet and given pain relief.



“The animal is now in the Dublin SPCA shelter and is currently undergoing surgery to have its tail amputated,” the spokeswoman said.

Gillian Duffy, an ambulance driver with the DSPCA who was first on the scene, said: “When I get a call like that my heart sinks. My first thought is to rescue the animal as quickly as possible, to try and alleviate any pain that it might be in. It is afterwards, when I have had time to consider the sick minds that could do such a thing to a defenceless animal, that I begin to get angry. We know that animal cruelty is a predictor crime, the people that could inflict this pain on a puppy will move on to more brutal crimes.”

Ms Duffy said the children and their family had, in acting quickly and contacting the DSPCA, they had “undoubtedly saved this puppy’s life”. The animal, a Yorkshire terrier cross of about 11 weeks old, has been named Shiofra – the Irish word for ‘little fairy’.