Two dogs dumped, abandoned at roadside
Decherd, TN (US)Incident Date: Friday, Mar 30, 2007
County: Putnam
Disposition: Alleged
Abuser names unreleased
Two Jackson County residents had some bad luck on March 30, but not as bad as that of the two dogs they were leaving on a Putnam roadside.
The woman and man from Jackson County got cited to court for cruelty to animals.
The two dogs, one of which was pregnant, wound up at this county's animal shelter and may already have been put down.
It happened on Knights Church Road last Friday afternoon.
Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Michael Robertson happened to be driving on that road and saw a law being violated, says a report by Putnam Sheriff's Animal Control Officer Bill Hunter.
The trooper saw "two people set two dogs out of their van and then start to drive away," Officer Hunter said.
The trooper stopped the van and called Officer Hunter, who questioned the Jackson County residents.
"The man said they had taken these two dogs to the Putnam Animal Shelter, but said the shelter workers had refused to let them leave the animals there since they were from another county," Hunter said.
"They didn't want to take the dogs back home so they stopped on the side of the road and set the dogs out, with no food, water or shelter and no place known to them to get any."
Officer Hunter said the man and woman told him "somebody else had dumped the dogs on them."
The officer cited the two for cruelty to animals and then took the two dogs, both mixed breeds of about three or four years of age, to the animal shelter, he said.
How could he get them into the shelter when the Jackson residents could not?
"Where I found them was in Putnam County," Officer Hunter said.
What will happen to the dogs?
"The law says the shelter will hold them for 72 hours before putting them down, or if the shelter workers think they are adoptable, they might hold them longer," Officer Hunter said.
But he doubts that the two dogs met that criteria.
"Most of the time, people adopting animals want them younger than that, so I'd say they didn't have much chance of getting a home."
And what will happen to the two Jackson County residents who got cited to court?
"It's a misdemeanor, so they'll probably just have to pay a fine," Hunter said. "But at least the dogs didn't get left out there to starve or get run over." References« TN State Animal Cruelty Map
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