A Bradenton man has been arrested after deputies found he killed his dog to avoid taking it to the pound.
Joshua Cox, 19, was arrested by the Manatee County Sheriff's Office and charged with Animal Cruelty and Possession of Marijuana.
At approximately 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, deputies responded to a residence on 19th Street West in Bradenton for reports of a suspicious person. While deputies were on the way, they learned that the suspicious person had asked the resident of the home for a shovel so that he could bury his dog he had just killed because he didn't' want to take it to the pound.
When deputies made contact with Cox, he was sitting in a lawn chair in the backyard of the residence and he asked them, "are you here about the dog?" Cox invited the deputies in the backyard through the gate he was opening to view the scene. Deputies patted Cox down to see if he had any weapons in his possession. While searching, they found a small bag of marijuana in Cox's pocket.
The deputies located the 3-year-old pit bull suffering from several wounds to the neck and body.
Cox told deputies his parents brought the dog down from Greenville, North Carolina so that he could spend time with the dog before he had to get rid of it. He said he had the dog at his brother's house for the past few days but that his brother's wife told him he couldn't keep the dog at their house because it would violate their lease terms. His sister-in-law told him he had a day to "get rid of the dog," according to the arrest report.
Cox told deputies he could not bring himself to take the dog to the pound and where he's from, when it's time to put a dog down, he just shoots them, but being in the city limit, he could not shoot it.
Cox explained to deputies how he killed the dog. He told them he heated a kitchen knife up because it was a thin knife. He told deputies that the dog moved so he stabbed the dog three or four times.
Cox made a full confession of committing the crime to deputies.
