Police are investigating a case of animal abuse in the Capital Region after three pit bull puppies were found abandoned and abused on railroad tracks in Albany over the weekend. Lori Chung has more.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- They’re playful and precocious and these three-week-old puppies give little sign of the pain they endured at the hands of an abuser.

“One of them, the paw is completely cut off, [another] one has a hole through the paw and on one of them, the two middle digits of the rear left paw has been cut off,” said Brad Shear of the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society.

A railroad worker found three puppies on the track near Broadway in Albany. The runt of the three died from its injuries.

“Someone might have tried to put a nail through that dog’s paw,” said Shear.

It’s the kind of case that police throughout the region are getting help to crack.

“Police are mandated by law to investigate animal cruelty,” said Sue McDonough of the New York State Humane Association. “But they don’t get the training because it’s not under the penal law.”

This workshop is filling in the blanks for those pursuing suspected animal abuse.

“[We teach them] how to get help because it’s live evidence,” said McDonough. “How to work with other agencies, when they need search warrants.”

But this case is an example of why police, though at times ill-equipped, have to take cruelty cases seriously.

“This is somebody who got tools, got equipment, went somewhere and did something intentional and did it again and then did it a third time,” said Shear. “So this is an individual that we all need to be worried about.”

There are still no arrests in the case but the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society is asking anyone with information to give them a call at (518) 434-8128.

Some experts at the workshop are supporting a bill that would make animal cruelty a part of the penal law, so that officers will be trained on how to investigate those cases.