Man Arrested After Dog Wearing Weighted Belt Drowns

A man in Leesburg, Virginia, faces animal cruelty charges after his dog drowned while wearing a 13-pound weighted diving belt and playing fetch in a lake, according to an arrest report.

The arrest report states that Dennys Luque was playing fetch with his German Shepherd, who was wearing a weighted belt, at Lake Harris from a boat ramp when the dog jumped into the water and did not resurface. Luque and others jumped after the dog to try and rescue him, but failed and the dog drowned.

Witnesses told police that Luque stopped looking after five minutes and left the park, Channel 9 reported. Firefighters came and found the dog at the bottom of the lake a little more than an hour later.

Luque later told police that he conducted weight training exercises with his dog every week and had to get out of the water because his muscles were cramping, according to the arrest report. He also said that the water was too murky and muddy to find her.

He said in an interview with Channel 9 that his dog usually refuses to jump into the water when she is too tired, but that didn’t happen on this day. He also said he was training the dog to sniff out drugs.

Luque said he left the scene to get help to try to retrieve his dog’s body later and that the incident was a terrible accident. Police arrested him a few hours later and charged him with animal cruelty.

You can watch the full interview in the video below.