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SCHENECTADY
Teen accused of stabbing family dog
BY STEVEN COOK Gazette Reporter

A city teen was arrested this week on a warrant that accuses him of stabbing the family dog to death, authorities said.
Shatir Allen, 18, of 35 McClellan St., was charged with one count of aggravated cruelty to animals, a felony.
Allen is accused of killing the dog on March 3 by stabbing it in the torso at the family’s home, according to papers fi led in court. The dog was stabbed just under its rib cage and died of internal bleeding. The dog is identified in papers by the name Brownie.
   Witnesses told police the dog bit Allen. They said Allen then left and returned with a knife and stabbed the dog, according to papers.
   The incident began just after 2:30 p.m. when Allen and another boy were playing with the dog. Allen is described in papers as growing angry with the dog. The dog then bit him in the arm. Allen responded by beating the dog with a stick, according to the incident report. The dog responded by biting Allen in the stomach. It was unclear if Allen was injured. It was then that Allen left for the knife, witnesses told police. Allen allegedly fled with the knife after the incident. He was not there when police arrived.
   Allen was one of three teens charged in the 2004 beating of a teen to get his Walkman and then attacking people who tried to stop them, records show.
   A co-defendant testified in court that it was Allen’s idea to attack the teen because he didn’t like the way he was looking at him. That co-defendant, Reginald Adams, then 17, pleaded guilty to an attempted robbery count in the case. The outcome of Allen’s case could not be determined.
Allen was charged in the dog case under Buster’s Law, a provision of the state’s Agriculture and Market Law. He is free on $4,500 bail.
   Buster’s Law resulted from a 1999 bill authored by Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady. It increased penalties for animal cruelty following the brutal death of a cat named Buster who was set on fire in Schenectady.

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Irish athlete had
role in dogfi ghting
   DUBLIN, Ireland — A star of Ireland’s Gaelic football league was exposed Thursday as a director of an illegal dogfighting club, an underground gambling activity that has wrecked the reputation and career of Atlanta Falcons football player Michael Vick.
   The 17-month undercover investigation by BBC Northern Ireland’s “Spotlight” program, broadcast Thursday night, found evidence of 15 illegal dogfighting operations in the British territory of 1.7 million people.
   The program secretly filmed Gerard Cavlan, a 31-year-old member of the County Tyrone Gaelic football team, discussing his ownership of more than a dozen dogs — and bragging about how one “hardmouthed dog” gripped another in its jaws.
   “Sure he had him in the chest, and he shook him and he shook him for 25 minutes,” Cavlan said during a conversation filmed covertly in his vehicle.