ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis area man has been charged with stabbing his neighbour’s border collie seven times with a pocket knife in an attack that left the dog so severely injured that it had to be euthanized.

John Conrad Ross III, 59, of Crestwood, was charged Monday in St. Louis County with unlawful use of a weapon and animal abuse, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports . No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

A husband and wife, William Parker and Robin Steele, told police that Ross chased their two dogs Saturday after they ran onto his property. The police report says Ross grabbed one of the dogs, named Teddy, before slamming him to the ground and stabbing him. Afterward, Steele called for the injured dog, and he ran to her, bleeding, police said.

Court documents say Ross then stared at his neighbours while holding a handgun.

Steele and her husband took the dog to a veterinarian who told the couple that one of the stab wounds was to Teddy’s jugular vein, according to the police report. The couple decided to euthanize him.

Steele told police that Teddy was “the sweetest dog ever” and would never hurt anyone. But Ross told police that the dog had charged him and bit his right hand, according to the police report. He admitted to stabbing Teddy with a pocket knife.

Ross also showed the police officer scrapes on his right hand, which the officer wasn’t convinced were bite marks.

Steele’s attorney, Dan Kolde, said they are getting a restraining order against Ross, who keeps a handgun in his home. Kolde said the attack on Teddy was “particularly brutal,” and that there were other ways of handling the dogs being on his property.

“You call animal control and the owner gets a ticket,” Kolde said. “You don’t resort to vigilante justice.”

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com