This makes me sick.

He may have inflicted unreasonable pain on an animal out of poor judgment, but seriously, the judgement of those who are shouting for jail sentence is equally poor. Get some reasonable perspective, guys.

His initial report to police was that he decided to kill the the dog "because it barked at neighbours and escaped from his yard." He only later suggested to them it had bitten someone, which is still no reason not to call animal control. Where was the call to authorities when it allegedly bit someone?

"That's how they do it on farms" is no defense. Many atrocities have been committed on farms. Because an event could have also happened on farmland does not legitimize any behavior in a civilized society.

He killed the dog because it barked?

Oh, how I'd love to take a nail gun to this guy.

poor poochie :(

This is not the way, nor the reason that they 'do it on farms'. Just because someone inflicts pain and suffering, even death on a human because of gross negligence doesn't mean they are excused from the crime, I wouldn't expect it to be different because it was a dog.

Hmmm.

And "reasonable judgement" for driving nails into the head of a living creature would be....?????

I don't know, I have never lived on a farm.

I would totally expect it to be different. It's just an animal, after all. Don't get me wrong, I really like animals and stuff, but anyone who claims that animals should be granted the same rights, treatment and legal acknowlegement as humans shall please strip off their clothes right now, leave their home and all belongings behind and live in a cave or tree, and eat only leaves and fruit for the rest of their life, OK thankyouverymuch.

The driving nails into the head of a living creature part was the bad judgment...!!!!!

I'm just saying that this is not the same as running over a dog, or even shooting a dog in the head with a gun and shouldn't be the same legally.
This *is* a case of animal abuse through gross negligence, and should be treated the same as if he had done it knowingly, as I'm not so sure he didn't. It is his fault (and also incredibly hard to believe) that he didn't look up the proper way to kill an animal. After all, it would've taken a few moments - a phonecall to a friend's, a google search, hiring a goddamn taxi! It wasn't as if his animal needed to be put down right away, he hadn't broken anything, the man probably had a room with a door and a lock or a heavy piece of furniture somewhere if the thing was really all that violent.
Laws about animal abuse are reflective of laws about humans, there's no way around it, law is a human institution. I'm not saying that he should be punished as if he had killed a human in this way. I'm saying that, reflectively, looking at the law, his unbelievable laziness which resulted in the animal suffering so much before it died should have a consequence.

I call bulls**t. This guy got in a rage with the dog for whatever reason and unleashed on it.

I don't buy that he thought it'd die with the first nail, I don't even think he thought it through.

This is purely going off gut instinct.

That aside this is extreme cruelty. The guy deserves some jail time and needs to be banned from keeping animals for life and a massive fine.

How many shades of a*****e do you need to be to try and kill an animal with a nail gun becasue it barks?