YouTuber Brooke Houts Will Not Be Charged For Alleged Abuse Of Doberman Puppy, Despite Disturbing Video
Brooke Houts is a YouTube vlogger with over 300,000 subscribers. She is known for frequently posting videos with her Doberman puppy Sphinx. In August, Houts accidentally posted raw and unedited video footage to her channel that showed her appearing to abuse her dog. In the video, she is seen slapping her puppy, yelling at him, pushing to the ground and even spitting on him. She removed the footage soon after, but it was too late. The video was captured and released, then viewed by thousands. It led to a complete media frenzy, with Houts being dubbed an animal abuser and facing harsh backlash online, according to Distractify.
The backlash was so fierce that the Los Angeles Police Department was even called in to investigate. There were petitions started and shared widely calling for Houts’ puppy to be taken away from her. However, to thousands of people’s dismay, that won’t happen. The police looked into the incident but did not find that the behavior shown in the video was enough to qualify as animal abuse. Houts was cleared of any charges and will get to keep Sphinx. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that Houts will ever be able to go back to her career on YouTube.
The vlogger faced scrutiny so intense after the initial release of the video that she had to turn her Instagram page to private. She hasn’t yet shut off the comment section on her recent YouTube videos, but they’ve been swarmed by angry comments. Houts has not posted a new video since the incident occurred and has been totally silent on social media, except for thanking those that reached out with kind comments in the midst of all the backlash. She also wrote an apology in which she defended her actions.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, the Youtuber posted a lengthy written apology on Twitter shortly after the incident occurred. She admitted she should not have yelled at her dog, but insisted that she’s not an animal abuser and that she acted out of anger.
“I am not going to play the ‘victim card’ or anything of that sort, but I do want to point out that I am rarely as upset as what was shown in the footage. That being said, this does NOT justify me yelling at my dog in the way that I did and I’m fully aware of that. Should I have gotten as angry as I did in the video? No. Should I have raised my voice and yelled at him? No. However, when my 75 pound Doberman is jumping up in my face with his mouth open, I do, as a dog parent, have to show him that this behavior is unacceptable.”
