Bruno was honoured by the state for his work. Photo / Facebook, Arcangelo Caressa
Bruno was honoured by the state for his work. Photo / Facebook, Arcangelo Caressa
The Italian Prime Minister has condemned the “vile” killing of a sniffer dog that died after sausages filled with nails were thrown into its kennel overnight.
Bruno, a 7-year-old bloodhound, was once honoured by the Giorgia Meloni for helping to locate nine missing people.
But onSunday, the dog was found lying in a pool of blood at an animal training centre near the city of Taranto in Italy’s southern Apulia region.
The animal died an agonising, hours-long death from internal bleeding, Arcangelo Caressa, his trainer, said. He has vowed to track down the culprits.
In a Facebook post, Meloni called the killing a “vile, cowardly, unacceptable act”. She was pictured in 2022 bending down by Bruno’s side as he lifted his nose to her face.
“Thank you for everything you did, Bruno,” she added.
Bruno had worked on missing persons cases across the region, leading to the recovery of nine missing people, some of whom were Alzheimer’s patients who had wandered away from their home.
Bruno was honoured by the Italian Prime Minister for finding missing persons with Alzheimer's disease. Photo / Facebook, Arcangelo Caressa
Besides search-and-rescue operations, Caressa revealed that Bruno had also recently been on missions involving animal abuse and illegal dog-fighting gangs.
Family members of those he helped were among those sending messages of condolence.
“This morning I died alongside you,” Caressa wrote on social media next to pictures of nail-filled bait found near Bruno’s corpse. “You fought your whole life to save humans and now it was a human who did this to you.”
“They will pay, I swear.”
Prosecutors have opened an investigation and detectives are reviewing CCTV footage from the training centre in an attempt to identify those involved.
Potential motives include revenge by criminals whose activities Bruno helped to uncover while working with law enforcement.
‘Boundless cruelty’
On July 1, a strict animal cruelty law came into force in Italy, which included sentences of up to four years in prison and €60,000 ($116,000) in fines for intentionally killing an animal with cruelty.
The law was named after Michela Vittoria Brambilla, the Italian centre-right politician and animal rights activist, who pushed for its passage for nearly 20 years.
On Sunday, she urged authorities to apply the law with full effect in Bruno’s case.
“A nail-filled bait gave a horrible, long and painful death from internal bleeding to he who had saved so many lives. At the thought of such boundless cruelty one should be ashamed of belonging to the human race,” she said.
A bloodhound’s sense of smell is estimated to be around 1000 times stronger than a human’s and can lock a human scent in its nose and trail a hunt for long afterwards.
Messages of condolence have poured into the National Dog Training Centre near Taranto, while Piero Bitetti, the city’s mayor, called for the quick identification of the culprits.
He said: “Together we must give a strong signal: we will not permit Taranto to be identified with such barbaric acts. Our community deserves to be seen for what it truly is: united, respectful and civil.”
