BOB ARTHURS / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Big Isle resident Leilani Arthurs pets her dog Blaze in this undated photo. The dog was killed Saturday allegedly by one of her father's tenants, who believed it had killed his cats.

Tenant accused of
killing landlord’s dog

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> A Big Island man has been charged with cruelty to animals and trespassing in the machete slaying of a dog belonging to his landlord's daughter.

Tenant Jeffrey Fendentz was convinced that the female, part-German shepherd, named Blaze, had killed several of his cats over the years, including two kittens last week, landlord Bob Arthurs said.

Arthurs said he thought nothing of it when Fendentz on Saturday walked by him with a machete, common in rural Orchidland, south of Hilo, where they live.

Shortly afterwards, he said, he heard Blaze barking and discovered her neck was hacked with the machete while she was tied up, 40 feet from where Arthurs and a friend were working. The dog died at a veterinarian's office.

Arthurs' daughter Leilani, who owned Blaze, cried for days, he said.

"I couldn't even go near her," he said.

Despite Fendentz's suspicions, Blaze had never been seen hurting cats, he said, and she was used on the farm to protect Arthurs' sheep.

Fendentz could not be reached for comment yesterday.