This was heartbreaking. The photos speak a thousand words.
Both Bo and Bella were brought into the Harrison County Dog Pound. Bo’s story is a happy ending, while Bella didn’t get a chance. She suffered alone and then died in a nasty rural county pound.
On a Thursday in late August, 2008, Bella, like Bo, was brought into the Harrison County Dog Pound by the dog warden. She was unable to walk on her own and had to be carried. Bella’s plight came to light when our volunteer downloaded routine dog photographs which were taken on Thursday, but not furnished to her until late Sunday night. Alarmed and horrified, she immediately went to work on a plan for rescuing this poor gal once we could gain access to her.
There was no mention by the Warden that this dog was in such horrible condition. Bella was found dead on Monday, having been left to suffer, untreated, from Thursday until she expired at the closed dog pound facility during the weekend. There was no compassion or humane treatment given to Bella. Unfortunately, help came too late for Miss Bella.
We rely on donations for vetting and emergency treatment for the animals, as well as routine operating expenses. Seeking emergency vetting in rural Ohio may require a trip counties away to an animal hospital on a weekend. Support from a caring public is needed to support the efforts of the Ohio SPCA.
This is worse than anything I’ve seen in the rural south.
I am just horrified by what these pounds do the dogs.My local pound euthanizes animals about every 2-3 weeks and when i go by the pound,i just want to cry my eyes out for those dogs.
And when i read this story,i just about cried.
The warden himself took this photo using one of my cameras while taking routine photos of new arrivals. He did not return the camera for days. There was nothing to prepare me for what I viewed when I downloaded it that Sunday afternoon, days after this dog had arrived at this pound. This picture will haunt me. I brought this up at a county commissioner meeting and invited the audience and press to look at the photo, then on harrison.petfinder.com, to which the Assistant Prosecutor, Michael Washington, interjecked, “we are not here to discuss photos of dogs”.