In the article, "Decomposing dog led to arrest of Norwich woman," (Feb. 8), a Norwich woman reportedly abused a dog she was housing by deliberately starving and depriving it of outside "relief." The dead 3-year old dog, found decomposing with protruding bones set me back. In this supposedly civilized society, how does such cruelty escape the attention of anyone who knows of this situation only until the end of an animal's life? Good for the anonymous caller! An animal that only needed to be temporarily cared for, instead, ended up unsuccessfully biting cans of food from hunger and was found decomposing for several weeks with lacerations to the teeth and gums. Why did the suspect, Sonya Smith, not call the animal control officer for help when needed? It would have had a chance.

The punishment for this "misdemeanor" sounds like a bonus; she's deprived of owning animals. If guilty of this act, Smith is a disgrace to humankind for her treatment of animals. She let her children witness this horrendous demise of an animal. Shame. Her memory of this cruel treatment will be on lifetime overdrive. The torture she inflicted to the animal was painful. The emotion role-modeling to her children was disgraceful.