Three teenagers from Louisiana were arrested on animal cruelty charges Saturday after local law enforcement learned of a Snapchat video that showed one suspect brutally abusing his Labrador retriever. The graphic footage was recorded on a duck hunt in early 2023 by a second suspect, while the third watched offscreen, according to the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The incident took place between retrieves in waist-deep water on or near the Manchac WMA on Lake Pontchartrain. Footage shows the owner disregarding all dog training and handling standards as the confused Lab attempts to do what it’s being asked. The owner screams and cusses at his dog, calls him the n-word, issues commands the dog doesn’t understand, chokes him by his collar, shocks him repeatedly with an e-collar, and viciously punches the dog over and over in the ear as the dog yelps in pain.
The video is incredibly tough to watch, and viewer discretion is advised if you come across it (multiple posts containing the footage have already been removed from social media platforms like Facebook). It’s unclear how the disturbing video began circulating, but the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office received a dozen calls from an outraged public Saturday, says public information officer Ashely Rodrigue. This lead to an investigation by the agency’s detectives and the same-day arrest of three Ponchatoula-area minors.
“When we went to make the arrest on Saturday we certainly took the opportunity to assess the dog that we were told was the same dog,” Rodrigue tells Outdoor Life, noting that a year and a half has passed since the incident. “The animal that we were provided … was assessed and was seen to be healthy … with a good disposition.”
Despite 91,000 signatures (and counting) on a recent Change.org Petition for the Lab’s permanent removal from the teen’s legal custody, decisions about the dog’s home are not currently under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Office. All Rodrigue could reveal about the Lab’s current location is that “the dog is not in the presence of any of the three suspects.” Details on the Lab’s age, sex, and name are unavailable, although photos circulated online show it’s a chocolate Lab.
“We continue to be in conversation with several other organizations and agencies in the event that there is an opportunity to take additional action,” she says, referring to legal experts, animal welfare agencies, and animal control. “It’s horrific. We are just as outraged as the public. Our swift actions to make arrests in this case over the weekend are evident of that commitment to justice in this case, and that this investigation is not over. We hope that the public can trust us to work this case appropriately and to not take actions into their own hands.”
The teen who beat his dog was charged with one count of animal cruelty, while the two who laughed and heckled from behind the camera were charged with one count each of principal to animal cruelty. The investigation remains open, says Rodrigue, who notes that certain details about the case are restricted since the three suspects are all 15 years old. She could not comment on whether the three boys are still in custody and what potential legal action or punishments might follow. She did confirm that the Sheriff’s Office has also been in touch with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for this investigation.
A Problem for All of Us
The most pressing concern in this video is the dog’s welfare. The public is concerned, and rightly so, about the abuse they witnessed on camera and any abuse that has continued (or might continue) off camera. The long-term concern is the fallout for honest, ethical duck hunters and their dogs.
Any hunting dog owner will tell you how much time, effort, and money they spend to keep their hunting dog safe, healthy, and happy. But because this kid looks like a duck hunter — he’s wearing waders, he’s on the marsh with buddies, and they’ve shot a few ducks — his actions will shape public opinion about hunters in general. Three dumbass teens created a video that will absolutely be weaponized against hunters and the hunting community. Throughout all 51 horrible seconds of the clip, the potential for our destruction crackles like lighting in drought season.
The animal abuse is most noticeable, and it’s what will make headlines. It’s the kind of behavior animal activists imagine when they think of hunters, and it’s what they will seize on when they inevitably get ahold of this video. If the physical abuse of the Lab wasn’t bad enough, there’s an eerie pleasure in the Louisiana kid’s rage.
“I’m gonna fuck you up,” the kid says as he fumbles for his e-collar remote. “I hope this shit burns.”
Then there’s the racism. Though rare, this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a duck hunter call his brown or black dog by the n-word. I hope it’s the last. The sheer wrath and subsequent violence that follows its usage in this video should make it clear why many hunters of color fear for their safety at the boat ramp or in the woods. When a new hunter or a non-hunter sees this video, it will reinforce stereotypes that hunters are racist, backwoods rednecks and widen the chasm between urban and rural communities.
Wrapped up in all of this is the perversion of e-collars and dog training, two topics already rife with infighting among the hunting community and entrenched in the wider dog-owning public now, too. This video demonstrates what animal-welfare advocates think discipline and e-collar use looks like among the hunting community when it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve written before about the staggering amount of work, patience, and sacrifice it takes to train a hunting dog. I’ve interviewed and worked with a dozen dog trainers with as many styles; their single, unifying philosophy is to keep their temper when training and handling a dog. To train a hunting dog of any skill level you must be willing to train yourself, and to understand that a fault in your dog likely originates with you.
Anyone who has any experience with dogs can tell that the chocolate Lab in this video is confused and terrified — he’s not misbehaving or being stubborn. Worse too is that the video illustrates the exact opposite of the bond that all true duck hunters have with their dog. Any hunter’s first duty in the field is the safety of their companions and that includes the dog, always. This teen may be wearing camo and killing ducks, but the fact that he and his friends have no earthly idea that such a bond should exist tells me, most of all, what the public may never understand about this incident: These kids are no duck hunters.
What True Hunters Can Do
If there’s one lesson that the hunting community learned when the Wyoming wolf torture incident made headlines this spring, it’s that we didn’t move fast enough to distance ourselves from an animal abuser who called himself a hunter. There are a lot of parallels between Cody Roberts — the man who ran down a juvenile wolf on a snowmobile, then paraded the injured animal around a rural bar — and this Louisiana kid who tortured his dog.
But leaving threatening comments on social media is not the answer. The animal cruelty depicted in this video has prompted social media users to post the minor’s names, photos, and home addresses online. What started as a legitimate purpose (to help identify perpetrators of a crime) has escalated into threats of violence on both the kids in the video and even on well-intentioned hunters who shared the video to raise awareness.
After outfitter and waterfowler Dustin Colvard initially shared a video of the incident in the hopes the kids could be brought to justice, the duck hunting community started attacking him for what they believed was a video of him beating his own dog. To be abundantly clear: Colvard is not in the video and does not know the kids depicted in it. He simply shared the video in the hopes the kids would be located and charged with a crime.
He did not respond to a request for comment for this story Monday, but wrote that he had “been sent threats” in a Facebook post. Late Monday he posted on Facebook to say he was no longer engaging with the hunting community about the dog-abuse video.
“I’m getting accused of things I’ve never done when my name should have never entered the conversation,” Colvard wrote. “Do not ask me for the video. I will not be involved with this case any further. I tried to do a good thing in this community by sharing awareness about it. It has the potential of putting my [hunting] brand at risk that I’ve worked so hard to build. It’s just getting too dangerous for me and my family and down right unbelievable that some people can’t read. I understand that most of these people are all talk but it doesn’t matter. My family’s safety [sic] is what is most important. I will not answer any more messages about this subject.”
Many of those threats came from adults, as well as adult hunters. One distinct difference between the Wyoming wolf video and this one is that the three kids in this video are just that: 15-year-old kids. When this was filmed they were at least 14, possibly even as young as 13. While that’s not an excuse for their behavior (no kid I know or have hunted with would do such a thing), it is telling. It begs the question that many social media commenters have already asked: Where was this kid’s dad?
It’s irresponsible to speculate on the particulars of a troubled kid’s home life, not least because he’s a juvenile and we don’t (and won’t) have the facts. But one thing is obvious: These kids never had the benefit of thoughtful duck hunting mentors. If they had, this incident never would have happened.
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Just like in any community, there always has been and always will be a tiny population of shithead miscreants and rebel teenagers in the lowest ranks of the duck hunting community. Often, the two overlap. These days, there seems to be a tendency among veteran hunters to either write off this next generation (“These kids don’t get it”) or make excuses for their behavior (“Hey, we did all kinds of crazy stuff when we were kids”). But neither of these perspectives are useful.
It’s up to veteran duck hunters to do the hard work of shaping those rule-breaking teenagers into upstanding hunters, while also cutting out the most reprehensible among us — like the kids in this video. This effort will take time, patience, and care. It must be done in the field, not on social media. And if we fail, the cost could very well be the future of duck hunting.
