By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A former Stillwater man, who admitted fatally beating a female friend’s 9-week-old German shorthair pointer puppy, has been placed on five-years’ probation with an order to have counseling, which he had already completed by his sentencing Friday, and follow its requirements, along with paying a $350 fine, a prosecution fee and court costs, Court Clerk Lori Allen said Tuesday.
The defendant, Tabor Allen Johns, 22, listed a Hennessey address on his written guilty plea filed in court records Friday.
The puppy had a severe brain bleed, a broken rib and a lacerated kidney, injuries considered too severe to survive; the puppy was euthanized at the OSU Veterinary small animal hospital, Stillwater Police Officer Jeremy Rager wrote in an affidavit.
Dr. Paul DeMars “told me these injuries are consistent with the puppy being abused or beaten,” the Stillwater officer wrote in his affidavit.
“Dr. DeMars said due to the suspicious circumstances, he ordered an autopsy done on the puppy,” the affidavit said.
The puppy had been left with the defendant after its female owner left for work and her female roommate went to class in Stillwater on April 30, 2019, the affidavit said.
She “didn’t want the puppy kenneled for any longer than necessary,” the affidavit said.
The women “both began getting messages from Tabor shortly after 10 am saying that the puppy was acting strangely and may need to be taken to the vet because the puppy chewed on a packet of ant poison,” the affidavit said.
“They were under the impression he was just leaving for class and could not take the puppy to the vet himself,” the affidavit said.
When the owner’s roommate came home from class, she found the puppy had vomited inside the kennel and was convulsing, the affidavit said.
She took the puppy to the vet and later learned it had to be euthanized, the affidavit said.
Both women “were adamant that the puppy seemed to be doing fine when they left the apartment,” the affidavit said.
Dr. DeMars “had been told by poison control that if a puppy had ingested this poison, it would not have caused the effects this puppy displayed,” the affidavit said.
The defendant said, “the puppy was fine and was running around playing when the puppy ran into a TV stand in the living room and bumped its head knocking it out.
“Tabor claimed the puppy was clumsy as most puppies are. I agreed that puppies are clumsy, but the extent of these injuries concerned me,” the officer wrote in his affidavit.
“The apartment is not very big and the TV is sitting on a wooden stand between the living room and dining room/kitchen. It would be difficult if possible for a 9-week-old puppy to get enough speed built up in the apartment by running to cause these injuries to itself by running into the TV stand,” the officer wrote in his affidavit.
Animal cruelty is a felony punishable by as much as five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, court records show.
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