SF man faces animal abuse charges after dead puppy found

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KGO) -- A 26-year-old man is facing felony animal abuse charges for starving his friend's dog to death.

San Francisco resident Kun Sun was arrested after the emaciated body of a puppy, with an identifiable microchip, was found. It's an extreme case of animal cruelty and one of the worst the Peninsula Humane Society has ever seen.

A Bichon Frise puppy named "Penny" was found dead, stuffed in a shoebox with a plush toy and a neatly folded towel along Palmetto Avenue in Pacifica last January.

"Just the way the dog was placed like that... and what we did next was scan the dog for a microchip which was traced back to an owner," Dr. Scott Delucchi from the Peninsula Humane Society said.

The owner had moved to China and left the dog in the care of a friend. Tests confirmed the cause of death was starvation.

"It's the fat content in the bone marrow and we tested that. Normal is something like 59 percent. This dog had one to one to one-and-a-half percent, which shows really gross neglect and an awful, horrible way to die," Delucchi said.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon told ABC7 News, "The level of cruelty in this case and the suffering that obviously this puppy had to go through before she died, was pretty significant. She was starved to death, she was kept in very close confinement."

The investigation led to Sun, who was arrested on animal cruelty charges.

"If someone is caring for someone else's animal, if they've taken that as their responsibility, they're responsible for the care," Delucchi said.

"If you don't want to own up to the responsibility of having a pet, just give them up for adoption," Gascon said.

A preliminary hearing is set for March 24.