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Dead dog causes alarm for pet lovers

By Miles Layton jmlayton@heraldstandard.Com 4 min read
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SOUTH CONNELLSVILLE — Destiny Trump came upon a site as she was doing yard work Monday that gave her nightmares. Across from Trump’s home on First Street, there was black plastic garbage bag by the side of the road that had a dead dog inside.

“I started crying, so I went over and got my neighbor and asked him to open it up,” she said. “We were scared because of the size of the bag. He opened up the bag and it was a little puppy — dead — just lying there.”

Trump said the dog, a registered as an Olde English Bulldog with white fur, did not appear to have been dead long. She said there were no signs of trauma or any visible evidence as to how the 2-year-old dog, not much older than a puppy, had been killed.

“We looked at her; there was no gunshot wounds, no cuts or signs of strangulation,” she said. “We have no idea what happened, but the bag was open and not tied when we found her, so for them to try and asphyxiate her — kill her through suffocation — we don’t think that was it. The bag was open, so we think the dog would have fought its way out of it.”

Mindy Smith, vice president of the One Dog at a Time, said there are plans to have a veterinarian conduct a necropsy to better determine what happened.

“One Dog at a Time was willing to take her and get a necropsy done to find the cause of death, so we can bring closure to this and hopefully find the owner and find out what happened to this poor girl,” she said.

Smith said police have a possible suspect and will be releasing any details regarding the case. The only clue is the dog’s tattooed identification which police traced back to find the owner, she said.

Smith said police planned on contacting the owner Tuesday.

Trump said it is hard to grasp the type of person who would kill a dog like this.

“I started crying because we have pitbulls of our own,” she said. “We are such dog lovers as it is. This was one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen that a human being could even do to a dog like that.”

Trump said she wants justice for the innocent animal.

“We want to find justice for her and find out who did this to her,” she said. “It’s sad. It’s honestly very sad that someone who is a human being could do this to a poor puppy. This is somebody that doesn’t have a heart for any type of animal.”

The puppy was not the only dog to meet an untimely end in recent weeks.

Ashley Nicholson, an adoption coordinator with Angels of Mercy, said about a week ago, someone shot a pitbull at point blank range by the railroad tracks behind a store in Uniontown. She said video footage from surveillance cameras may provide clues as to any suspect.

Nicholson mentioned another case where a dog discovered in the West Leisenring area sustained fatal injuries to its neck. She said these injuries did not appear to have been caused by trauma related to being hit by a car.

“There’s been a lot of dogs found deceased along the side of roads in the last few weeks,” Nicholson said.

Trump said if she ever met the person who did killed the dog she saw, she’d definitely have something to tell them: “I feel like you are one of the worst human beings possible; to even think of that laying a dog on the side of a road bed instead of giving it a proper burial. Throwing it over like trash — you deserve to pay for what you did to her. It’s sad.”

She said the dog did not appear to be a stray because it didn’t have any fleas, the pads on its feet were smooth and its nails were long, which suggests that it was an indoor dog. An outdoor dog would have shorter and more filed down nails due to walking on roads and frequent digging, she said.

Trump said she had a hard time sleeping Monday night.

“I had nightmares about it seeing the little puppy there,” she said. “That’s one of the most heartbreaking things that someone could do to a dog.”

Smith asked that anyone with information about this dog to contact her at 724-762-9060 or Kari Coble, president at One Dog at a Time, at 717-248-2902 or police at 724-439-7111.

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