A video purporting to show a 40-year-old DreamWorks animator beating a neighbor’s muzzled dog with a hammer horrified Humane Society officials, who said they've seen nothing like it.

“When our officers first viewed the videotape, one of our officers had tears in his eyes. He’d never seen anything like this before,” said Steve McNall, who heads the Pasadena Humane Society and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “In my 31 years at this animal shelter I’ve never seen anything like this.”

McNall’s agency, which is licensed to investigate crimes involving animals, is conducting the probe and made the arrest in conjunction with Pasadena police.

The suspect, Young Song, pleaded not guilty in court Thursday and faces a preliminary hearing next month. He allegedly climbed a fence into a yard in the 1900 block of Navarro Avenue in Pasadena, where a 16-month-old German shepherd was muzzled but untied. Surveillance camera video shows the beating but does not reveal what Song did with the dog, which is missing and presumed dead.