Witness to dog abuse speaks up
A Goleta man who brutally killed his Chihuahua won’t be spending anymore time behind bars, instead last week a judge sentenced him to three years of probation and restricted him from owning a pet for ten years.
“I can’t even tell you the pain that Floyd went through but I can tell you that it was intense and that the sentence was not enough,” said Hannah Kushigenmachi.
Kushigemachi was dating Kyle Barbre when he adopted the one-year-old Chihuahua in April through Santa Barbara County Animal Services. She says at first Barbre seamed to enjoy spending time with Floyd. Kushigemachi says she didn’t know Barbre was abusing the six-pound dog until one morning she woke up in Barbre’s home to hear the little dog screaming.
“I knew he was doing something to hurt the dog because it was yipping and whining and it was really sad and I started freaking out because I had just woken up and didn’t know what was going on,” said Barbre.
Later on that morning Kushigemachi says she was waiting outside when Barbre took Floyd out of the house and down the street to a nearby creek.
“He just literally walks up to me straight face and says I think my dog is dead. I was trying to teach it to swim in the lake and it had a seizure in the water. I jumped in to try and save it and it drowned, and I thought that doesn’t sound right at all,” said Kushigemachi.
The one-year-old Chihuahua was only under Barbre’s care for six weeks. Kushigemachi believes if she wouldn’t have reported the abuse to authorities, Barbre may have gotten away with killing Floyd.
“If you see anything and any animal gets hurt no matter what animal it is, speak up and be the voice that they don’t have because that is what I did and I didn’t really event want to call the police but I feel like it was the right thing to do,” said Kushigemachi.
