Jerk left his dog to die
Overheated after being abandoned in locked car
A HELPLESS Yorkie died and another dog suffered dehydration when they overheated after their drunken owner locked the pooches in his car, authorities said Sunday.
Staten Island electrician Kenneth Schnabel, 54, admitted to cops that he’d been boozing in the morning and was fully to blame for the canine calamity on Saturday.
“Those are my dogs,” he told cops after they were called to rescue the pets from the steel and glass pressure cooker. “I f----d up. I was drunk, I left my car like that.”
A passerby noticed the overheated dogs locked in the car, which was parked in front of a hydrant on 64th St. near 11th Ave. in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, and contacted authorities about 10:20 a.m., cops said.
The temperature outside had already passed 80 degrees by then and would reach a stifling 89 by afternoon.
Animal advocates say a car’s interior can spike to 120 degrees in just half an hour on an 85-degree day.
NYPD Emergency Service Unit cops managed to free the small pets. They gave them water and oxygen as they lay limply on the sidewalk, then took them to a local animal care facility.
“One is in critical condition w/ a strong heart beat,” NYPD Special Ops wrote on Facebook.
While the rescue was underway, an acquaintance of Schnabel’s called him and said he should come to his car, according to police.
Schnabel was charged with aggravated cruelty to an animal, animal neglect and leaving an animal in a vehicle in an extreme temperature.
“The defendant parked his car in front of a fire hydrant where he left his two dogs in the car with both the doors closed and windows up — as in everything was shut,” Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Deanna Himelson said at his arraignment.
The 12-year-old Yorkshire terrier was treated by veterinarian Dr. Jill DiFazio, but its injuries from the heat were too great and the doomed dog had to be euthanized, authorities said.
The other parched pooch, a 7-year-old spaniel, was “conscious and alert,” prosecutors said, and was recovering.
During his arraignment, Schnabel, sporting brown flipflops; khaki cargo shorts; an olive-green shirt; dark, brownframed eyeglasses, and long, gray, shaggy hair, exhaled heavily and started shaking his head when the prosecutor broke the news that his dog died.
“It’s obvious my client is very sad that the dog was euthanized,” said Schnabel’s lawyer, Elizabeth Calcaterra. “He was not kicking or mistreating the animals . . . just someone who forgot his animals in his car.”
The lawyer said the union electrician was currently battling cancer of the mouth and did not work in parts of 2016 and 2017.
“He fell asleep. A neighbor woke up him up and told him police had surrounded his car. He returned horrified to find he forgot about his dogs.”
Schnabel, who lives in Arrochar, S.I., has seven prior arrests, including drug possession, robbery and burglary charges, police said.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Steven Mostofsky refused to hold the Grateful Dead fan, setting his bail at $10,000.
“It doesn’t appear to be purposeful cruelty towards the animals,” the judge said. “It appears to be an unfortunate circumstance where they were left in the car in extreme heat . . . they were left there. Sorry to say that someone waited 90 minutes before calling the police.”