Dog pushed out of car, abandoned on roadway
Springfield, VA (US)Date: Jan 2004
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
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In a parking lot near Lake Accotink's historic trestle bridge one day two years ago, a car slowed to a stop. The unknown driver, in plain view of park staff, then opened a passenger-side door and shoved a dog out onto the asphalt below. �He was scared. He was shaking. He tried to defecate on us,� said park manager Tawny Hammond, who estimated the dog's age at 14 or 15.
The car sped away before anyone could get a license plate number. The dog was eventually taken to the Fairfax County animal shelter, where Hammond thinks it had to be put to sleep.
Dumping unwanted pets at the 500-acre Springfield park, while illegal, demoralizing to staff and harmful to animals not used to the great outdoors, is far from a new problem, she said. Since Hammond took over as park manager nine years ago, she and other park employees have witnessed a virtual zoo of animals left there. She said finding empty pet carriers in the park is not uncommon. �It's just like Noah's Ark over here,� a fed-up Hammond said. And it's not just live animals, employees are finding. In December, someone came across a large bag stuffed with a dead dog. Someone else found a dead iguana recently.
For the live ones, park staff has taken it on themselves lately to find homes for many of the abandoned animals. Some employees and volunteers have acted as foster parents, while still others have taken in animals permanently, paying for their food, shots and operations to have the animals spayed or neutered. �If we had not trapped them, they probably would not have made it through the winter,� said Lake Accotink employee Lee Ann Shenefiel, 23, about a family of feral cats staff discovered living in a park tree last year. Two of the cats now live at her Manassas home. Hammond suspects those dumping pets assume the animals can fend for themselves in the wild. Often times though, she said, the pets they find appear hungry and sick.
She also thinks many of the owners probably realize what they are doing is illegal (police said it's a class 1 misdemeanor in Virginia). But, she says, either they are �too embarrassed� to take their pet to a shelter, or the convenience of the park is too tempting for them to pass up.
�Ignorance, laziness,� she said of the owners. �It just reinforces our belief that all of the world's animal problems are caused by people.� If you have information on this case, please contact:
Fairfax Co Animal Shelter
703-830-1100
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