(Virginia's Animal Cruelty Laws MUST be
enforced!)
On the evening of Friday July 5th, in Sandston, VA. located in eastern Henrico County a representative of RORR (Rescue Our Richmond Rottweilers) received a call from a concerned family about a Rottweiler that they had taken shelter in their basement. They believed the dog belonged to a neighbor and claimed that the animal was in very bad health and appeared to have been neglected. Soon after obtaining directions to the callers home the RORR
reps. quickly responded to the location where she was shocked to find a Rottweiler mix in horrifying condition. "This animal appeared to be close to
death" commented the first RORR rep. The gentleman who placed the call then showed the rep the alleged/accused owners house, at 330 Seven Pines Ave. in Sandston, VA. only a couple of houses up the street from the caller's home. The
second RORR rep. then made her way to the home and knocked on the door. A middle-aged Caucasian man answered the door from a lying down position on a couch next to
the front door. When asked if the man owned a Rottweiler, he simply reply
"yeah".
Meantime the first RORR rep. was on the cell phone with the Henrico County Police attempting to get an Animal
Protection Officer (APO) to respond to the location. The dispatcher simply replied, "There are no
APO's on duty" at that late hour. Having not received a satisfactory answer from the dispatcher, the second RORR rep. then phoned again, this time pleading with the dispatcher to please
send a police officer to the scene in an effort to at the very least, take a complaint report. Shortly after the second phone call, 2 Henrico County uniformed officers arrived on the scene to both speak with the alleged owner, as well as to do a visual inspection of the dog. After a short conversation with the owner, the officers walked over to where the dog had
taking shelter and began their examination. With a gasp, the inspecting officer then tells the second officer present
to "Get an
APO here right away".
A call was placed to order an Animal Patrol Officer on the scene ASAP! After a short while, the
APO showed up
appearing not to be overly happy that his holiday weekend was
interrupted, and performed his quick examination of the animal.
He then informed the owner that he had 2 choices, 1 was to take the sickly animal to an emergency vet facility right then, or 2 they would take the dog themselves and the owner would charged with criminal charges as well as be billed for the service. The owner agreed to take the animal. At approximately 12:30 am, about 1 hour after the call, the RORR rep. then phoned the Emergency vet who shall remain nameless, to check to see if the dog had indeed received medical attention to which the vet's desk clerk replied "I can not disclose that information' because the rep. was not the owner of the animal. The rep then asked if they could at least tell her if the dog was alive or not to which the clerk replied, Yes, the owner had already left with the dog.
Please take a moment to look at the digital photos of this animal and email us with your comments about the condition of the dog and whether or not you believe this animal was neglected. At this time, No charges have been brought up against the owner of the Dog! The state of Virginia has laws to protect animals from this inhumane treatment, ie; owners must provide proper medical care for their animals, but yet it seems that the laws are not being enforced to the letter. Photos of this animal are attached below…
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UPDATE:
July 14th 2002
Shortly after the original, above posting, my wife Deborah, a
volunteer foster with RORR, visited the Magistrate on duty
for the County of Henrico and explained what had transpired and showed the graphic photos to him
to which he replied with an intense glare "This individual
will be arrested!" and he could not understand why the APO
that responded to this call did not charge the owner of this
abused & neglected animal. So Deborah filed charges against
the owner for Animal Neglect, as well as contacted the local
Humane Groups such as S.O.S (Save Our Shelters "Court Watch")
PETA & the Henrico Humane Society for
their support, as well as the local news media in bringing this individual to justice. We have
continued our fight by staying in contact with the assigned
county prosecutor for this case, furnishing him with research data on the condition
known as "Acute Flea Dermatitis" that this animal has
been diagnosed to have and was not treated for by the owner. By
the owners lack of action, this lead to a severe allergic reaction involving self
mutilation by the dog in the way of chewing. This untreated
condition lead to oozing & infected lesions that covered approximately
30-40% of the animals body. The animal was found to be malnourished
and very weak but to our knowledge has not been removed from it's
owner!
When ask by the prosecutor "what
punishment we would like to see applied" my wife replied,
"I would like to see this individual, if found guilty, to
be band from ever owning another living creature as long as he
lives. Also we'd like to have any jail time commuted to
community service where by, the owner shall serve the total sum
of his time in the local shelters, helping to care for other
abused and neglected animals in an effort to forever remind him
of his doings!"
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UPDATE:
October 3rd, 2002
(Virginia Animal Neglect Case is Won!)
Today, the accused Mr. Wayne English plead
guilty to a lesser charge during a plea bargain, and was charged
with the "Class 4 Misdemeanor" of "Animal
Neglect". The imposed sentence was as follows:
A fine of $250.00
(suspended) under the condition that Mr. English not own, or
be placed in the care of any type of animal for a period of 3
years in the State of Virginia and, that Mr. English sign over
ownership of the 8 year old dog on or before October 25th of
this year to a new, more caring owner.
Though we are happy that in this case justice
was served, we were very disappointed in the turn out of animal
supporters for this case! We do however want to publicly thank
Miss Mary Anne Conmy who was the only person concerned enough to
show up on behalf of S.O.S (Save Our Shelters') own animal
advocacy group called "Court Watch" who's volunteer
job it is to attend cases such as this to show the local
government that this type of mistreatment will not be tolerated!
Once the medical history, and current condition assessments on
the dog who we now no is named "Rocky" are available,
Miss Conmy has agreed to assist us in finding a loving home for
this very deserving animal. Officer Fowler the Henrico County
Police officer also appeared in court today as a witness for the
prosecution. Officer Fowler was the first Officer to arrive on
the scene the evening of July 5th. Our "Thanks" goes
out to him for appearing as well. Last but not least, we also
need to send out a "BIG THANK YOU" to the Assistant
Commonwealth's Attorney, Mr. Charles Felmlee for all his help in
prosecuting this case. Without these combined efforts, nothing
would have occurred and "Rocky" would still be
suffering, or even dead. This story will not be truly over until
"Rocky" is in his new 4 ever home.
Hopefully, this will be very soon! Many Thanks to the hundreds
of our web viewers who took the time to email us with their
concerns about this case!
Mark & Deborah Payne, RottenRotty.Com
