Dog relieved of excruciating pain – owners don’t care

At 12:45am last Monday, Roodepoort SPCA Inspector, Mike Allen received a devastating call.

People were complaining that a dog had been howling non-stop for a long time. When the howling didn’t stop, Allen decided to investigate. He arrived at the house at about 2:30am and saw a German Shepherd crossbreed hanging from a palisade fence. “It seemed as if the dog wanted to jump through the fence, but got stuck between the bars. A spike penetrated his abdomen.

He’d been hanging there for close to two hours without his owners trying to help him.”

He said the SPCA vehicle’s sirens were on and the lights were flashing, but the owners did not respond. “We assumed there was nobody home. The dog was in excruciating pain. We took him to the SPCA clinic. His intestines were spilling out and we had no option but to relieve him of his pain by euthanising him. There was no way he could be saved,” a visibly upset Allen said. He added that the dog was fairly old.

He went back to the house two days later to speak to the owners. “A woman came sauntering out in our direction. She really had a don’t-care attitude. She said they were missing a dog. She said she’d heard the dog wailing and saw the SPCA vehicle, but she didn’t know what was happening and was too scared to leave her house.”

According to Allen she did not enquire about the state of her dog and did not seem upset that the dog had been euthanised. “Surely,” he said, “if you know there is some commotion outside your home, you call the police? I know she wasn’t alone, since she continuously referred to ‘we’. If you are scared, call the police – you can’t just adopt a don’t-care attitude.”

Allen said he has already opened an animal cruelty case at the police. “The SPCA will be requesting that the family be banned from ever owning another animal, but unfortunately that decision is in the magistrate’s hands.”

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