Two policemen accused of beating a police dog to death pleaded not guilty in the Pretoria District Court yesterday to charges of animal cruelty and malicious damage to property.
Captain Deon Linde (37), a senior supervisor, and Inspector Warren Carl Kannemeyer (38), an instructor, were stationed at the police's Dog Unit. After their arrest in July last year, they were moved to the Mounted Unit.
It is alleged they hit a three-year-old Rottweiler, Freud, so violently with a sjambok during a training session in June last year that he died soon afterwards.
According to the charge sheet, he was also allegedly hit with a steel pipe.
After pleading, Kannemeyer said in his plea explanation that he did hit the dog three to four times with a sjambok as part of its training. He denied that he had wrongfully and intentionally hit the animal as an act of cruelty.
Captain Balan Koopsamy-Govender, from the Dog Unit's training division in Pretoria West, said a patrol dog was under training in May and June last year and on June 15 the dog was dead.
"The dog was taken to hospital where a medical report revealed he was traumatised and it was suspected he had been beaten. I was instructed to open a docket," the witness said.
Answering a question by defence advocate Jaco Goosen, Koopsamy-Govender said Kannemeyer was a training official who trained novice dog handlers.
Goosen showed the witness the police code of principles pertaining to animal training. It stated that a handler had the discretion to punish a dog.
The witness said a dog was punished with a choke or shock-chain, while positive re-enforcement entailed voice control or food.
"You only give a dog a hiding in exceptional circumstances, like when it attacks a trainer. Even then the hiding must not be excessive," the witness said.
He agreed that a whip was part of the training equipment. It was used to make a cracking sound near a dog. However, a sjambok was not allowed.
The trial will continue on May 18. - Court Reporter.
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