Animal Cruelty

Hercules was barely a dog anymore, confined and forgotten in a Gloucester County basement like a box of dusty, old toys. Meanwhile, upstairs, Roxanne Notaro's chocolate Lab "Little" had food, warmth, and love. Officials with the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say it's a miracle Hercules, an American bulldog, is alive after police officers found him locked in a small crate, covered in feces, urine and fleas in the basement of Notaro's home on Vassar Road in the Wenonah last week.

A Bucks County farmer with a felony conviction was sentenced Thursday to a minimum of nearly a year in the county prison for shooting his dog after it attacked the neighbors' pets. Gary Kirk of Newtown Township was sentenced to 111/2 to 23 months in the Bucks County prison. Kirk pleaded guilty in July to animal cruelty and a weapons offense that stemmed from his felony drug conviction 20 years ago. He avoided a possible five-year state prison sentence for unlawfully possessing a firearm.

Investigators from the Pennsylvania SPCA seeking the source of a rotten stench in a Kensington row home today found four turtles, a gecko, and a fairly large, black and blue fish. The animals were alive amid the filth in the home on Cornwall Street near Kensington Avenue, but when the investigators made their way into the back yard around noon, they realized why one person in the home had jumped out a back window and fled when they came in. Three dead dogs were decaying back there, spokeswoman Wendy Marano said, and investigators found an additional three dead puppies inside a trash bag. All the dead dogs were pitbull-types.

A Monmouth County man accused of running down a flock of seagulls in a mall parking lot has pleaded guilty to animal-cruelty charges. A judge in Eatontown, N.J., levied more than $750 in fines and fees against Jeffrey Karczewski of Hamilton. Victor "Buddy" Amato of the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said witnesses saw the 22-year-old circle the gulls in the Monmouth Mall parking lot before laughing as he ran them over Oct. 18. One bird was killed and two others were never found.

LANCASTER - The second of two Amish people charged with animal cruelty for leaving their buggy horses tied up in a southeastern Pennsylvania parking lot on a hot day has been found guilty and fined $300. The cases involving Paul Smucker and Linda Byler, both of Lancaster, sparked an outcry about animal abuse in an area populated by many Amish. Smucker was fined after being found guilty last week by a district judge. Byler had previously been fined $300 after pleading guilty in September.

A 23-year-old Fairhill woman has been charged with animal cruelty in the abandonment of a horse in a lot in Kensington, the Pennsylvania SPCA said Friday. SPCA spokeswoman Wendy Marano said tipsters led investigators to Claritza Lopez-Fuentes of the 3000 block of North American Street. She was charged with animal cruelty for failing to provide veterinary care for the white horse, Marano said. The horse, malnourished and suffering a leg wound, was found Sunday in the lot on the 3500 block of Ella Street.

A 23-year-old North Philadelphia woman has been charged with animal cruelty in the abandonment of a horse in a lot in Kensington, the Pennsylvania SPCA said. Wendy Marano, spokeswoman for the animal welfare agency, said tipsters led investigators to Claritza Lopez-Fuentes. Lopez-Fuentes, of the 3000 block of North American Street in the Fairhill section, was charged with animal cruelty for failing to provide veterinary care for the white horse, Marano said. The horse, malnourished and suffering a leg wound, was found Sunday in the lot on the 3500 block of Ella Street, about a mile from Lopez-Fuentes' home.

In the Region Aqua Pa. seeks rate increase Aqua Pennsylvania Inc. , which has more than 400,000 water customers statewide, applied for a $38.6 million rate increase with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission . The company, the largest operating subsidiary of Bryn Mawr's Aqua America Inc. , said the rate increase would boost a typical monthly residential bill by $5.08 to $57.72, a 9.7 percent increase. Aqua president Karl Kyriss said the company invested $450 million in infrastructure, including upgrades to its distribution and treatment systems since its last rate request in 2009.

A dog that shelter workers called the victim of the worst cruelty they had ever seen is recovering at the Delaware County SPCA. It will be five to seven days before it is known if the pit bull-boxer mix, dubbed Curious George for his curious nature, will survive, said Justina Calgiano, spokesperson for the Media-based shelter. The dog weighs 35 pounds, half what it should, she said. His nails are overgrown, and he has sores on his backside, probably the result of sitting too long in one spot.

UPPER PITTSGROVE TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Facebook postings led to an animal cruelty investigation that culminated with the arrest of a Salem County man on a weapons charge. The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says what it considered to be "disturbing" postings on the social media site caused officials to execute a search warrant in Upper Pittsgrove Township on Tuesday night. Authorities arrested Ian Barlow. NJSPCA president Rick Yocum says the group rescued five cats and discovered between 15 and 20 dead cats neatly wrapped in baggies in the freezer.