SPCA investigating viral video of man shoving pole at dog

UPDATE: An investigation into a video that appeared to show an Oceanside man poking a caged dog with a stick has been closed without resulting in criminal charges, the Nassau County district attorney’s office said. 
Prosecutors said they did not charge dog trainer Brian DeMartino, 46, after determining that the date, time and jurisdiction of the video couldn’t be authenticated and after showing a longer, unedited version to several dog training experts, including those with national humane associations, “who declined to say that the methodologies depicted and narrated went beyond industry standards.”
In a separate action, DeMartino accepted a conditional plea to a violation for sending what prosecutors described as a “menacing text” to the man who posted the video on social media. He satisfied all plea conditions and that matter is now sealed, the district attorney’s office said.

The story below was originally published on Dec. 10, 2016.

The Nassau County SPCA is looking into a widely shared video that appears to show a person at a dog-training facility aggressively shoving a pole into an animal crate.

The video, posted late Friday night, appears to show a man shoving the pole repeatedly into the crate as the dog inside cowers and yelps.

The SPCA said it believes the video took place at a Nassau County board-away dog training facility.

“We are aware of it and we are looking into it at this time,” SPCA head Gary Rogers said. “At face value, the video is very disturbing.”

The video originated in a private Oceanside-based Facebook group for crime prevention, but group administrator Tommy Marrone, who previously boarded his German shepherd at the facility, later shared the clip to his own profile. It racked up more than 60,000 views as of Saturday evening and more than 2,800 shares.

Multiple attempts to reach the owner of the dog training facility on Saturday were unsuccessful.

Marrone, 43, of Oceanside said he and his wife sent their German shepherd Zeus to the facility for two weeks of training in June and found the video disturbing. The clip raised questions for the family.

Lauren Marrone, 32, said she didn’t know whether her dog was harmed during his stay at the facility.

“It’s unnerving,” she said.