News 12 at 6 o'clock / Sunday, August 22, 2010

RICHMOND COUNTY, Ga. -- An Augusta family says their six year old dog was found dead this weekend inside their fenced yard. The humane society tells them the pet was poisoned. The case has been filed as animal cruelty.

Odie's owners say he was a friendly, healthy eighty pound dog, that everyone in the neighborhood knew and loved him. So they were shocked when the Humane Society told them Odie was poisoned with antifreeze.

"It's really gonna be hard because he used to greet me when I got home from school," says Bridget McClung. She says Odie was like her "uncle."

Summer Sims sets flowers on Odie's fresh grave. She says they still don't know why someone would poison their family dog.

Sims says she's devastated. "I don't know why anyone would hurt an animal. It's heartless. I mean what are they gonna do?"

The family woke up Saturday morning to find Odie dead outside their home. "I just had a gut feeling about the dog." Sims says she knew something was wrong with a six year old dog dying suddenly. "I called animal control and they did an [autopsy] on the dog."

Randy Dunson was shocked by the results. "The vets said he died from radiator fluid mixed with raw hamburger meat. From what I understand that's a very painful way to die....We've never fed Odie any raw meat, period."

Odie was a trained therapy dog for Randy's mother, who died a few months ago. A picture of her and Odie was even in her obituary. Randy says the dog was all he and his siblings had left of their mother. "She was disabled. She got around in a wheelchair, an electric scooter. And she always kept Odie with her."

He says Odie knew when to get help when his mother collapsed or got sick, and that he even saved her life several times. Sims adds, "If anybody knows anything we would like them to come forward because this wasn't a pet- this was a family member."

Randy says he heard Odie barking the night he died, but didn't know he was sick. "I saw him the night before. I'm the last one who saw him. I'm the one who let him outside."

Bridget says the loss has hit the whole family hard. "I'm gonna miss him a lot because it's gonna be hard to get it off my mind what happened to him."

Animal abuse websites report thousands of cases of animal cruelty every month. The most common cases involved dogs. Neglect and abuse, however, are reported far more frequently than poisonings.

Deputies told the Sims family they have seen seeing similar cases before- people killing bigger dogs so they can later burglarize a home. The Sims just moved in two weeks ago and have been renovating their home; they are worried someone had been watching their house... and their dog.