Bucks Co Man Sentenced For Killing Rescue Dog, Setting It On Fire

NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP, PA — A Northampton Township man was sentenced to two to four years in state prison after he pled guilty to killing his dog and burning it on a barbecue grill.

Nikolay Lukyanchikov, 50, entered an open guilty plea to counts of receiving stolen property, aggravated cruelty to animals, possessing an instrument of crime, cruelty to animals, and recklessly endangering another person.

Common Pleas Judge Raymond F. McHugh sentenced Lukyanchikov to spend up to four years in state prison. Calling his actions offensive, McHugh also ordered that he could never own, possess, or care for any animals of any kind.

Lukyanchikov adopted the dog, an eight-year-old greyhound named Bonanza, from the National Greyhound Adoption Program in Philadelphia in October of 2019. Renamed Preacher after the adoption, the dog was one of 118 greyhounds saved from the Macau, China, racetrack that animal rights activists described as “the worst hellhole for racing greyhounds in the world.”

Northampton Township police were dispatched to a residence on Holly Knoll Drive at 7:12 a.m. on April 30, 2021, after reports of a firepit and a couch on fire in the front yard were made. Officers arrived to find Lukyanchikov highly intoxicated, sitting on a bench near the fire as he threw fake $100 bills into the fire and squirted them with lighter fluid.

After extinguishing the flames, police found an unknown animal badly burned and charred on top of a small metal charcoal grill on the property; it was later determined that the animal was Lukyanchikov’s dog, Preacher. A necropsy later determined that Preacher had been shot at least once.

Lukyanchikov's roommate told police that she heard several shots coming from Lukyanchikov's bedroom and found that he had shot his dog. She said she barricaded herself in her room because she was afraid.

Police seized a 9-mm Baretta handgun via a search warrant, which had an extended magazine and five hollow-point rounds after they found bullet holes, shell casings, and blood inside the home.

Lukyanchikov told Deputy District Attorney Robert D. James that he shot the dog to put it out of its misery, but also because he was “having a rough day.”