Dog beaten, shot through the head
Pictou, NS (CA)Incident Date: Monday, Aug 14, 2006
Disposition: Open
Case Images: 1 files available
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Case Updates: 2 update(s) available
On Aug 14 or 15, a gold-coloured dog named Teddy Bear was the victim of abuse, so swollen after being beaten and shot through the head that the Shiretown Animal Hospital vet hardly recognized it was a dog.
Ms. Finlayson shook her head, pointing to the bullet's entry point and the still-raw exit wound at the back of the dog's head.
"She was so swollen. It took three days before she could open her eyes and she has bruising inside her ears. Look at her gum line," she said, pulling down the dog's lower lip.
Even one week after an RCMP officer found the skinny, badly beaten German shepherd and Labrador retriever mix tied to a pole behind an apartment building in this town, the dog still has bruising along its gums.
"I was told we might as well put her down because she was so badly injured, but I couldn't," she said.
"She was shot in the top of the head and it went out the back and . . . she didn't die. So she was beaten on the head and still she didn't die," Ms. Finlayson said.
"She didn't deserve what happened. And if I put this dog down, no one would pay attention to what happened to her. . . . I wanted to make sure people knew what she went through."
Coming up with a name for the abused pooch, believed to be about three years old, was easy.
"She looked like a little bear, so I called her Teddy Bear," Ms. Finlayson said Thursday.
Dr. Finlayson performed Teddy Bear's surgery free of charge and the grateful pooch has been placed in a foster home.
The name of the dog's owner has not been released. Pictou RCMP and the provincial SPCA are investigating the abuse.
Cpl. John Currie said Thursday the dog got loose from its owner sometime on the evening of Aug. 14 or early on Aug. 15. Police are still trying to determine who shot and beat the dog.
"We received a complaint and, as a result, we found a dog tied to a pole on a very short leash behind an apartment building, and it was near death," Cpl. Currie said
Ms. Finlayson said the dog's condition after the attack was appalling.
"We took the dog out for a walk after she'd had the surgery and it had drainage tubes in and looked pretty bad," she said. "Someone stopped us and asked if she had been hit by a car and I said, 'No, someone actually did this to her.' "
Provincial SPCA spokeswoman Judith Gass said Thursday the RCMP are leading the investigation because the dog was shot.
"We have no place in the investigation. RCMP are leading because it's a criminal . . . (matter). But we are there to help in any way we can."
In the meantime, Teddy Bear has a nice home and is being well cared for.
Case Updates"I miss Zena," said Riley Turple, her round face screwed up in despair as she cuddled two of Zena's puppies.
The nine-year-old Pictou girl hurried Saturday to show newspaper accounts of what had happened to the family dog, missing since the night of Aug. 14.
On Aug. 16, Zena - renamed Teddy Bear by the veterinarian who treated her - was discovered left for dead. She had been tied to a pole, shot and badly beaten.
RCMP and the SPCA are trying to find the people who abused the dog, but no charges have been laid, and police did not identify the Turples as suspects.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kathryn Finlayson successfully treated the dog for her wounds and found her a foster home.
Riley's parents, Bruce and Janet Turple, are distressed that officials have implied they are responsible for the abuse, and have not allowed them to have Zena back.
The Turples haven't been able to visit her, or even to tell her foster home that she is scared of vacuum cleaners, and her other likes and dislikes.
"We love this dog," Mr. Turple said Saturday, choking back tears as he explained that Zena had never been sick or injured in the seven years since they had rescued her from a neglectful home.
The couple don't own any weapons, he said, and got a sitter for Zena even when they went to the grocery store.
"She wasn't emaciated, like they said," Mr. Turple said, adding that the dog had never been fat.
Zena, a shepherd-Labrador cross, had also just shed her fur after finishing nursing a litter of three pups. They plan to keep two - O'Neill and Buddy - and the third has found another home.
The Turples have hundreds of photos of the golden dog with family members, surrounded by food dishes, curled up on clothing next to what appears to be a washing machine, and in other poses.
When the dog went missing, chain and all, the Turples checked with neighbours, and waited a couple of days before calling police, in the hopes she would show up.
Then Mr. Turple asked the veterinarian, who had not long ago given the pups a clean bill of health, and he found Zena - only to lose her again. He was told he could have the dog back if he paid the $2,200 medical bill, he said.
"Now we go out our back door, and she's not there," he added, starting to cry. "It's just not fair."
It especially hurts that someone accosted Mrs. Turple on Saturday, calling her a "dog killer," she said.
"Ask anybody," Mrs. Turple said. "Zena was treated well."
"No one's done their homework - this dog was loved," Mr. Turple added.
Zena's not the first animal in Pictou's Victory Heights neighbourhood to mysteriously disappear, only to turn up later dead or injured, said Tina Falconer, who lives a few doors down the street from the Turples.
Ms. Falconer's three-month-old kitten went missing last spring, she said.
A neighbour saw children swinging the kitten by the neck on a skipping rope, but the culprits ran away and so did the kitten. It was found days later hooked under a doorstep, the skipping rope gouged into its neck. It survived with treatment, but was later poisoned and died, Ms. Falconer said.
Then her dog was also poisoned but survived, she said.
Two other neighbourhood cats were found tortured to death on a fitness trail, not far from where Zena was found, and there have been other incidents of cruelty, Ms. Falconer added.
"There's been no proper investigation," Mr. Turple said.
"People are thinking badly of us, but this is a false allegation." | Source: Chronicle Herald - Aug 27, 2006
Update posted on Aug 31, 2006 - 2:30PM |
Police have not yet identified the person who beat and shot a Pictou dog before the SPCA seized it this month.
Once RCMP determine who left the dog for dead, a Criminal Code charge of cruelty to animals will be laid, Staff Sgt. Law Power said Monday.
Normally, the SPCA investigates animal cruelty cases but the RCMP are involved because a firearm was involved, he said.
The dog's owners came forward Saturday to say they didn't do it, and they had no idea who would have taken Zena, chain and all, from the backyard around Aug. 14-15.
Bruce and Janet Turple denied abusing their family pet of seven years.
They said Zena, always a thin dog, was fatigued after nursing a litter of recently weaned pups but was otherwise healthy before police found her tied to a pole and nearly dead on Aug. 16.
Pictou veterinarian Dr. Kathryn Finlayson successfully treated the dog and renamed her Teddy Bear.
The SPCA subsequently got a warrant to seize the animal and placed her in a foster home.
"This was a dog that very much needed help and the veterinarian stepped in and gave it," said SPCA spokeswoman Judith Gass. | Source: The Chronicle Herald - Aug 29, 2006
Update posted on Aug 29, 2006 - 10:05AM |
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