The 11-year-old Fort Worth boy who pleaded guilty to beating his neighbor's dog to death was sentenced in a Tarrant County court Monday.
Judge James Teel sentenced the child to 18 months probation, 30 hours of community service, individual therapy, family therapy with his parents and no unsupervised access to animals.
Last month, the boy, who has not been identified, pleaded guilty to charges of delinquent conduct, animal cruelty-torture, which is a state jail felony, as well as using a deadly weapon.
The child's neighbor, Jennifer Knittel, said she suspected the boy lured both of her dogs out of her backyard and beat Cookie with a large stick back in May.
Knittel, the owner of Cookie, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix, said an animal control investigator told her a necropsy showed Cookie died as a result of a fractured skull and a severed spine, the result of many blows to the body.
According to Tarrant County Juvenile Services, the boy underwent a psychiatric evaluation to determine his personality traits and a neuropsychological exam that looked into his medical disposition before Monday's sentencing.
