Workers at the Sangamon County animal control center made a
grisly discovery last Friday morning.
It was shortly after 10 a.m. when workers found a
mixed-breed dog, dead, inside an exercise pen outside the center. No one knows
how many hours it had been there, with temperatures dipping to three degrees
below zero during the night. No one knows whether the creature was alive when
it was placed in the pen where prospective owners play with prospective best
friends and the center’s dogs get walks and respites, however brief, from
kennel life. No one knows the dog’s name, or if it had one at all.
All anyone knows is that the dog was dumped, dead or alive,
after the shelter closed on Thursday, says Jim Stone, director of the Sangamon
County Health Department that runs the animal control shelter.
Stone’s voice quakes with disbelief and anger at the thought
of anyone just leaving a dog out in the cold, regardless of whether it was
still alive. The pen, he noted, isn’t far from the county’s 911 dispatch center
adjacent to the animal control center.
“For someone to come in and do that next to a 24-hour
operation is beyond me,” Stone says. “To have something like this happen is
devastating for our staff.”
There was no post-mortem examination to determine a cause of
death, Stone said, nor is there a formal criminal investigation.
“We’re exploring what our options are with that, whether there
was a potential for anyone to witness something like that,” Stone says. “If
anybody has any idea or any knowledge about this whatsoever, they can call my
office. I will consider any information that they want to provide me
confidential, and I will pass it on to the proper authorities.”
The number is 535-3100.
It was an act as senseless as it was horrific. The animal
control center takes in unwanted dogs, giving them another shot with new
owners. If the dog was alive, it could have been surrendered during regular
business hours instead of being left outside to freeze. If it was already dead,
then why leave it like that and force those who found it to wonder about its
final hours?
The incident has prompted immediate change. Employees now
check the center’s exercise pens first thing in the morning, Stone said. The
center is also considering whether to beef up video surveillance.
“This is the first time anything like this has happened,”
Stone said. “I can’t believe that anyone would do something like this.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 23-29, 2014.
