The Adamson family discovered their dog had been beaten to death with its tail cut off on Sunday.

Their seven-year-old is still reeling from the news.

“She was our little boy’s companion. He is absolutely devastated,” Craig said. “We’re thinking about taking him to the doctor, because he’s not coping very well with it.”

“He bawled for about five hours, just solid, we’re all pretty gutted by it.”

The two-and-a-half-year-old papered American Bulldog, purchased by the Adamsons for $3000, went missing Sunday morning.

Nova still had four eight-week-old puppies at home.

The dog would sometimes stray from the yard and was known fondly in the neighbourhood, but when she did not return home Sunday, the family began a search.

“We went all around, everywhere, all the streets, lanes, everything, there was four of us in the car so we could look from all angles,” Craig said. “And got straight home and posted status on three different Buy, Swap and Sell sites, ‘Have you seen Nova?’, ‘She has puppies waiting for her at home’.”

Craig said they had a response on Facebook within five minutes.

“We got a message, somebody saying, ‘I’m sorry to have to show you this, but I found it, I’m sure it’s your dog’,” he said.

“That’s how we found out about it.”

The man who allegedly killed the dog had posted photos of the dog on his Facebook page.

The photos depict the dog lying dead on the ground, with one image of a man crouched beside the dead dog, holding up its head, with three bird carcasses beside it.

“And you can see in this one, he cut her tail off,” Craig said, and indicated one of the images where a tail stub was visible.

They family phoned the Inverell police and learned the incident had already been reported that morning by the man who allegedly killed the dog.

Craig said they were told when the dog was scanned for her microchip, the response was ‘unknown owner’.

“And I said, ‘That’s absolutely incorrect, I have the paperwork here to prove that I changed the microchip over to my name,” Craig said, producing the microchip paperwork duplicates dated September 11, 2015.

“And I said ‘Where’s our dog?’ and she said ‘I’m sorry, she’s been taken to the dead animal pit’, so now we can’t even bury her.

“So that was another kick in the guts.”

The Adamsons understand a man reported the dog had attacked his caged birds but admitted the dog was not aggressive.

Craig said Nova was submissive by nature.

“She’s one of the most placid dogs I’ve ever come across,” he said.

He said when the man approached her with the shovel, she would have squatted down and looked up at him.

“And the thing with her, he could have reached out and grabbed her collar, she would have wagged her tail,” he said.

“You call the pound, you don’t attack her with a shovel.”

The family said the allegation of the bird attack made no sense.

Their dogs live unrestrained beside their several large aviaries with 50 budgies, cockatiels and a bird bath for wild birds.

“Her dog house’s right next to the canary,” Craig said.

“I can’t get my head around how anybody could do that to a dog, especially with a collar so it was somebody’s pet, it had big teats, so it had pups, and to still do that, you know?”

The Adamsons planned to sell Nova’s four puppies, but will now keep one, named Chips, as a piece of their lost dog. 

Inverell police are investigating the incident and are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.

The owner of the premises is assisting police with their inquiries.

Inverell Times