A beastly act - Mama dog, with mouth taped shut, pups rescued near interstate highway
By Kristen Swing
Press Staff Writer
kswing@johnsoncitypress.com
Tuesday was a good day for one mama dog and her puppies. Their temporary home at the Washington County/Johnson City Animal Shelter is a big step up from where they were found earlier this week.
The dog, along with her seven pups, was spotted Monday afternoon on the side of Interstate 26 near the Washington County/Unicoi County line. Truck drivers who were hauling rock from a nearby quarry pulled over to help the dog when they noticed her mouth was duct-taped shut.
?The tape was wrapped around her two or three times and it looked like she?d had it on there for a few days. There were marks on it where she had been trying to get it off with her paws,? said Jamie Hurd, one of the men who helped save the dog. ?We couldn?t get her to come to us at first. Then one of my buddies started petting her and another one held her while we took the tape off.?
Once the tape was removed, the dog?s personality immediately changed.
?She was real excited,? Hurd said of the dog, which appears to be some kind of Shar-Pei/boxer mix. ?She was wagging her tail. I guess she was happy just to have that tape off her mouth.?
Moments later, the men noticed the mama dog had some company on the side of the highway.
?In the tall grass she had made a nest where her puppies were all laying,? said Debbie Dobbs, director of the animal shelter. ?She had made a safe area for the puppies so they wouldn?t come toward the road.?
Hurd and his friends notified someone at the quarry and asked them to contact authorities. After giving the dog some crackers, they returned to their trucks, leaving with a couple of extra passengers.
?We had to leave before anyone else got there because we were blocking all the traffic,? Hurd said. ?We didn?t really know at the time if anyone was going to come save them, so we figured we?d take one or two of the puppies and try to at least save them.?
Johnson City police officers arrived a short time later and took the dog and remaining puppies to the animal shelter after giving them some food and water.
?The mom seemed to be very happy, friendly and playful. She was just glad to see people who could help her,? Dobbs said. ?We don?t know how long she and the puppies were out there ? I?d guess a day or two, because if it had been any longer, she would be in worse shape from not being able to have any water.?
The puppies appear to be about four weeks old and their mom is somewhere between 18 months to 2 years old, Dobbs said.
?They all seem to be in pretty good health,? she added.
While the mama dog and her pups are recovering nicely from their traumatic experience, shelter workers are still reeling from the obvious case of animal cruelty.
?There?s no sense in doing this when you can just bring them to a shelter,? Dobbs said. ?Duct-taping the dog?s mouth shut is just below the human level.?
Dobbs believes the duct tape was used either to stop the dog from barking, or possibly as an attempt to starve her to death.
?The terrible thought that it was to kill her, that thought makes me ill,? Dobbs said. ?There?s no telling how long she would?ve lived out there like that.?
Thankfully, the dog and her pups don?t have to worry about that now. Instead, they are well on their way to a full recovery and hopefully will find loving homes very soon.
?We have to wait a couple of weeks until the puppies are weaned and then we?ll put them up for adoption,? Dobbs said. ?It will probably be sometime after Halloween.?
Anyone interested in adopting one of the puppies or the mama dog is asked to contact the Washington County Animal Shelter at 926-8769.
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