'Unimaginable': Long Island police searching for person who stabbed dog 17 times

Police in Long Island, New York are searching for the perpetrator of a horrific animal abuse case.

On Nov. 27, a roughly 2-year-old terrier mix was found along a road in Nassau County bleeding heavily from several stab wounds. A good samaritan spotted the dog and took him to a local shelter, who scanned the dog for a chip and told her the terrier mix was too injured to be cared for there.

She then brought him to the Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter, which took him on and transferred him to an emergency vet.

It was discovered the young dog, whom the shelter named Cornell, had been stabbed 17 times by an unknown assailant, causing wounds to his lungs, District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a press conference on Thursday.

“Some of the stab wounds caused his lungs to leak air between his body cavity and his lungs and they had to be drained a number of times,” Donnelly said. “The other stab wounds were cleaned — were either stapled or sewn.”

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Cornell looking for quiet new home

Luckily, Cornell not only survived the abuse but has since made a full recovery and is now looking for a forever home. The Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter is searching for a quiet, relaxed new foster or adoptive family with no kids or cats for the pup.

“I’ve seen some pretty horrific things but the extent of the amount of times he was stabbed is unimaginable how someone could ever do that,” Ashley Behrens, director of the Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter, said during the conference. Despite being a bit understandably shy, Behrens said Cornell warms up quickly to new friends and is house-broken and well-behaved.

Authorities looking for dog's attacker

A former animal crimes prosecutor herself, Donnelly said she believed based on Cornell's condition that he was once a pet before what appears to have been a cruel and unprompted attack. She told the Nassau community that her office takes these kinds of crimes very seriously and asked for help in finding the perpetrator.

“We need to know what happened to this dog,” said Donnelly. “If you have seen Cornell being walked down the street in your neighborhood. If you’ve seen Cornell in someone’s backyard. If you’ve been anywhere where you think you think you have seen this dog, I ask you to call my animal crimes hotline.”

A $5,000 reward

The Nassau County SPCA is offering a $5,000 reward for information about Cornell's attacker and the perpetrator will be facing multiple misdemeanor or felony charges if caught, said Donnelly.

Gary Rogers of the Nassau County SPCA likewise appealed to Long Island residents during the conference, saying this kind of violence is a risk to the community at large.

“People start out on animals before they move on to human beings,” Rogers said. “Somebody in the community knows what happened to this dog, you got to keep your community safe. You need to call the DA’s office and tell them who did this because next time you’re going to look at this, it could be somebody else, it could be your child."

Anyone with information is asked to call the animal crimes hotline at (516) 571-7755.