A MAN has who used a puppy like a football has been jailed for the savage attack.

Burnley Magistrates were told how the tiny cross bred was violently abused by Christoper Ian O'Leary, 26, who had owned it for just a week.

Neighbours alerted police after they heard the animal screaming and yelping and saw the defendant attacking it in his back yard.

O'Leary, said to have learning difficulties, was jailed three months.

The defendant, of Cleveland Street, Colne,admitted causing unnecessary suffering.

He was also banned from keeping animals for 10 years.

Tulser Goodwin, prosecuting for the RSPCA, said two neighbours heard the puppy screaming and yelping, and at first thought it had been hit by a car before they realised the noises came from the back of a house on Larch Street.

O'Leary was kicking the dog like a football and shouting.

He picked it up by the skin on its neck and slung it into the back street.

He then picked it up in the same manner, took it back into the yard, started kicking it again and stamped on it.

He then threw the puppy against a wall with great force and then slung it into the kitchen, the court was told.

The next morning the RSPCA went to visit the defendant and he said the dog had died the day before and he and his father had buried it. The puppy's body was dug up from his father's garden and a post mortem examination by a vet revealed haemorrhages and bruising.

It had a dislocated right shoulder and its injuries were consistent with repeated hard, blunt and brutal trauma.

The injury to the puppy's tail was unique and could only have been caused by it being trapped for a long period or the animal having been suspended.

The vet concluded the dog died of internal bleeding, had gone through suffering beyond belief.

When interviewed at the police station, the defendant first claimed he had found the animal gasping for breath but later said it may have fallen down the stairs.

Basil Dearing, defending, said O'Leary plainly lost his temper, the incident was isolated and the animal suffered for a short period before its death.

The puppy had made a mess in the house and the defendant sought to reprimand it.