Texas Teen Pleads Guilty to Setting Puppy on Fire

A 15-year-old Arlington boy pleaded guilty in juvenile court this week to setting fire to a neighbor's puppy last month, a prosecutor said.

The boy, who is not being identified because of his age, faces probation or jail time in the Texas Youth Commission for a felony charge of animal cruelty, Tarrant County prosecutor Chad Lee said.

The boy's attorney, Karmen Johnson, declined to comment.

Arlington police arrested the teen-ager Sept. 9. A day earlier, police had received two 911 calls. First, a man reported that his pit bull puppy had been set on fire in his back yard in the 500 block of McQueary Street. The man found it severely burned inside his kennel. The animal was euthanized.

Around the same time, the boy's father reported that his son had been forced at gunpoint by an unknown man to set two pit bulls on fire, police said.

The teen-ager reportedly changed his account of the incident and told investigators he had been taunting the puppy and another pit bull and set them on fire with lighter fluid, police said.

A white, 1-year-old pit bull apparently extinguished the flames on herself on the ground and escaped the back yard through a hole in the fence, the boy told police. That dog has not been found.

The teen is being held at the Tarrant County juvenile detention center.