A Florida woman was jailed Friday after a passerby filmed her kicking and choking a dog and posted the video to Facebook.
Tarpon Springs police said Michelle Sieber, 26, has been charged with one count of felony animal cruelty. The dog in the video and a second dog are now in the custody of animal services, and neither appear injured, police said, according to ABC Action News.
Vincent Minutello spotted the woman’s treatment of the dog and asked her to “go a little easier on that dog please. … You’re choking him. You’re hanging your dog.”
Sieber laughed and asked Minutello if he wanted the dog, then told him “that’s how collars work.”
In the video, Sieber jerks the dog and pulls the leash, holding his front feet off the ground while he gasps for breath.
According to WFLA, Sieber is the daughter of Tarpon Springs City Commissioner Rea Sieber and lives in the camper seen in the video, parked behind her mother’s wine shop.
Sieber is being held at Pinellas County jail on a $5,000 bond.
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