Nikolay Lukyanchikov: Man who shot and grilled his greyhound sentenced to prison
A Pennsylvania man was sentenced on Wednesday, March 23, to two to four years in state prison after pleading guilty to fatally shooting his dog and then burning it on a barbeque grill. According to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office, Nikolay Lukyanchikov, 50, of Northampton Township, pled guilty to receiving stolen items, aggravated cruelty to animals, having an instrument of crime, cruelty to animals, and recklessly endangering another person.
According to Philly Voice, Lukyanchikov got Bonanza, an 8-year-old greyhound, through the National Greyhound Adoption Program in Philadelphia after the animal was rescued from a racetrack in Macau, China, in February 2019. The track has been dubbed ‘the worst hellhole for racing greyhounds in the world’ by animal rights groups, according to the district attorney's office.
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In October last year, Lukyanchikov nicknamed the dog ‘Preacher.’ According to prosecutors, officers were dispatched to a house in Northampton Township at 7.12 am EDT on April 30, 2021, after a complaint of a firepit and a sofa on fire in the front yard. Officers arrived on the scene and spotted Lukyanchikov sitting on a bench near the fire, squirting it with lighter fluid and tossing phony $100 notes into it. According to the news release, police also discovered a 9 mm pistol on the bench. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Lukyanchikov was ‘extremely intoxicated’ with a blood alcohol level of .25 and unable to talk. According to the district attorney's office, once the fire was put out, officers discovered an unnamed animal badly burned and charred on top of a tiny metal charcoal grill. The dog had been shot in the eye at least once, according to a necropsy.
Nikolay Lukyanchikov was sentenced to 2-to-4 years in state prison for stealing a gun and using it to kill his dog. https://t.co/urJ7Jwvb7k
— The Philadelphia Inquirer (@PhillyInquirer) March 23, 2022
During Lukyanchikov's sentence, Common Pleas Judge Raymond F. McHugh observed, “It scares me because you know you’re not supposed to have a gun, and yet you kept pursuing one. You should not have a gun, period.” According to Philly Voice, Bucks County assistant district attorney Robert D. James said, "Lukyanchikov said he killed Preacher to put the dog out of its pain but also confessed he had a horrible day. The firearm used to kill the animal was taken from a friend's wife a week before the shooting event. James told the Inquirer, “I think it’s fair to characterize him as a dangerous person who demonstrated his use of a gun on an animal. And it’s not a stretch to think he’d use it on a human.”