I heard a dog howling in pain once in my neighbourhood in Miami, and followed the sound (it was heart wrenching, it had a pleading helpless quality I will never forget) I went running towards the sound and ended up running into a neighbours backyard. When I reached their back fence I came upon their rear neighbor (back yards meeting eachother)who had a pitbull chained to a post in their carport, and they were in the process of cutting one of its ears with what looked like a razor. I yelled at them to stop and told them I was calling the police. They showed up within minutes, and one was a K9 unit, and by then many neighbours were outside. I began taking pictures and was yelling out loud what I had just witnessed. They hid inside. Nobody was arrested, and the police did not take the dog from them, but the neighbors got together and basically just took their dog. It was given to someone's friend and everyone lied about it to both the neighbour who had tortured the dog and to the police who came around asking questions about the stolen dog over the next day or so.