A spokesperson for the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals yesterday described the deliberate burning to death of a dog in a bonfire in Co Tyrone over the Halloween weekend as "the actions of depraved people".
The one-year-old mongrel was tied up and then placed in crates in the centre of the bonfire in the village of Glebe, about six miles from Strabane. Dozens of parents and children who had gathered around the bonfire only became aware that the dog was burning to death when they heard yelping coming from the centre of the fire.
"We couldn't believe it at first", said Mr Seán Elliott, chairperson of the Glebe Community Association.
"We tried to get at the dog to pull it from the fire but were driven back by the flames. The lighting of a bonfire is a tradition in the village. It normally starts at eight o'clock but a group of boys were seen throwing petrol onto the fire at about half past seven and then running off."
Everybody started to arrive around the bonfire, parents and children, many of them in fancy dress. Then all of a sudden we heard the cries and yelps from the dog. It was awful. The children started screaming and crying, we tried to get at the dog but we couldn't and then the parents took the children home.
"I'll never forget hearing that dog yelping. It went on for over a quarter of an hour but the flames were so high and the fire so hot we just couldn't get at it.
"These people who did this are just crazy. The children had just come from a party in the community centre and the bonfire was just outside the grounds of St. Theresa's Primary School where most of the children go to school. All the talk in the school grounds this morning was about the poor dog," he said. The dog's owner Mrs Mary Wilson was too distressed to talk about what happened.