Dog killer sentenced to probation

Most of the time, his sister says, John Meyer was a friend to animals -- bringing home strays as a kid, nursing a baby blue jay back to health and, as an adult dog owner, making sure the family Chihuahua had the best food and care.

On Thursday, though, the Hanover Township man was formally sentenced for the time he snapped.

Meyer, 42, will spend two years on felony probation, serve 40 hours of community service and attend domestic violence counseling for his crime: tossing the Chihuahua across the room and into a wall after he discovered it had urinated in the bedroom, then spanking him and rubbing his nose in the urine.

The dog, Kendrick, died.

"I'm very sorry for what happened," Meyer, his hands clasped behind his back, told Cook County Judge James Etchingham at his sentencing hearing. "That was not what was supposed to happen."

Meyer and his lawyer have said he intended only to discipline the dog, not kill it.

Meyer was convicted in July of aggravated cruelty to an animal, a crime that could have landed him in jail.

Assistant State's Attorney Michael Gerber pushed for that, saying Meyer has an anger management problem.

Putting him in prison, Gerber said, would show that "we as a society will not tolerate this kind of cruelty."

Meyer's attorney, Ernest DiBenedetto, argued Meyer cannot be compared to people prosecuted for prolonged and repeated animal cruelty.

Before handing down the sentence, Etchingham, a dog owner, said he'd studied letters -- some from the public urging jail time and others from Meyer's friends and family -- and conflicting portraits of Meyer himself.

On one hand, Meyer seems an animal himself, Etchingham said, noting: "I can't, for the life of me, fathom how any reasonable person can commit such a violent, despicable … and outright mean act." Accounts of the dog's injuries, including a fractured leg and ruptured liver, were sickening, Etchingham said.

At the same time, he said, Meyer has had no prior run-ins with the law and was, by all accounts, a model citizen.

DiBenedetto called the dog's death "a terrible and unfortunate incident that was brought on by some stress."

Around the time he threw Kendrick, Meyer said, a relative had died and a friend was diagnosed with cancer. He'd also been let go from work.

Barbara Chadwick, an animal rights activist who was in court Thursday, said she'd like to know Meyer is prohibited from further contact with dogs. That is not a condition of his probation.

Meyer has been banned from living at home since the incident because of a domestic battery charge lodged the same day alleging he choked his stepson when the 12-year-old didn't clean up after Kendrick. That charge was dismissed.

Meyer also stands to lose the licenses he holds as a real estate and mortgage broker, home inspector, salesman and aircraft mechanic.