Before the woman threw the Jack Russell Terrier 30 feet off the Blue Heron Boulevard Bridge in Palm Beach County, Florida, she claimed dogs could fly, witnesses told Palm Beach County sheriff's officials.
Authorities took the woman to a hospital for a mental- health evaluation. She likely will face animal-cruelty charges, the sheriff's office was quoted as saying by the Palm Beach Post.
The 8-year-old dog dislocated a leg in the fall onto Phil Foster Park, according to Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control.
"It did attempt to sit up. It was yelping really badly," a witness told Sun-Sentinel.
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"We had to turn away. It was just horrible to see a dog in so much pain and shock. But it did seem as though it was trying to sit up," the witness said of the incident that took place this week.
A day later, the 30-pound dog was in significant pain. It is in serious, but stable, condition, according to Captain David Walesky of Animal Care and Control.
"He's not completely out of the woods yet," Walesky said about the dog, adding that it has a significant amount of swelling.
Last year, in another incident of cruelty to animals, a woman was arrested after she reportedly kicked a tied-up dog into the Intracoastal Waterway near Boca Raton.
The state decided this month not to file animal cruelty charges against the woman, court records show.