The Pomeranian named Foxx ran outside the Florida condo where he lived to go to the bathroom but never returned.
The dog's owner Verline Barthelemy was cooking dinner when she opened the patio door and the dog scampered down the stairs and went to take care of business on the lush lawn behind their building.
"He usually came back in two minutes...I called for him and I didn't hear anything. He'd always come back," Barthelemy was quoted as saying by the Sun-Sentinel.
The dog went out on Friday night and on Saturday morning Barthelemy said a neighbor found Foxx's 7-pound, red-coated body on a stair leading to the patio and alerted Boisvert, who called Pembroke Pines police.
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"He didn't deserve to be beaten to death," Barthelemy said about Foxx.
A cruel note was written on torn, blue-lined notebook paper. It said, "WE BEAT IT 2 Death lol! HAHAHA!" and was taped to the dog's body, Pembroke Pines police said yesterday.
"I don't think I've ever seen a case like this in the city," Major Carlos Bermudez said during a press conference as he offered condolences to Foxx's family and called the manner in which they lost their pet "a tragic and sad event".
Reading from a report by the Saint Francis Emergency Animal Hospital, Barthelemy said Foxx's jaw, spine and ribs were fractured. His stomach was displaced, too, she said.
"I'm hoping that after the first hit, he was already gone and didn't feel what came next," she said.
Bermudez said the dog's injuries were consistent with blunt force trauma but that a detective had not yet confirmed details in person with the vet.
Discussing the taunting note that was left on the dog's body, Bermudez said, "By all accounts it looks like the dog was beaten to death and because of that, the fact that they left a note and the (contents of the) note that was left, that's alarming and that's something we want to investigate.