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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Abandoned dogs found in Clarksburg

JAMIE CHEN / AGGIE

Yolo County Sheriff’s Office looking to public for help in animal cruelty case

The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating an animal cruelty case concerning abandoned dogs in Clarksburg, Calif. The office is seeking public assistance, as it does not have any leads on who abandoned the dogs, one of which was an injured white-and-tan pitbull who suffered from an unprofessional spaying.

Vicky Fletcher, the manager of Animal Services under the sheriff’s department, elaborated on how the situation panned out.

“Our officer that was on call or on duty that day received a call from a citizen that there was a dog laying by the side of the road,” Fletcher said. “There was another call that came in later after he got down there to discover that the dog has a huge incision on its midline. He determined that there was also a second dog that had been there since someone saw the two dogs together earlier before he got there. It turned out to be two dogs.”

Both abandoned dogs were pitbulls. Fortunately, the other dog did not have the same spaying injuries.

“One dog was fine — no injuries, normal weight, looked good,” Fletcher said. “The other dog had a what looked like a stitched-up incision on the center of her stomach, and she was pretty underweight. He took that dog immediately to UC Davis. We brought that dog back here the next day and it was UC Davis’s opinion, as well as our veterinary, that someone without much experience spayed the dog.”

Rob Warren, the communications and marketing officer for the UC Davis Veterinary Hospital, denied further comment about the case due to lack of permission from the clients.

While the perpetrator has not been identified yet, the sheriff department is working hard to elicit information from the public.

“We’ve asked the media and talked to neighbors around the area, but we really don’t have a lot of leads at this point,” Fletcher said. “The only thing we can do is hope that the public sees these media posts and somebody will hopefully come forward.”

Even so, there are few traces to follow on the case so far.

“We have asked for the public help in this, but we have not had anybody come forward saying that they were aware of the dog had been in someone’s house or someone’s care,” Fletcher said. “We haven’t had any tips at all.”

Situations such as this have been a recurring problem. Authorities have picked up 16 abandoned dogs in this area within the past six months. 10 were pitbulls who had suffered injuries. Fletcher emphasized that the office is willing to help those who need help with the spaying to prevent such cases from happening again.

“The public can help by talking to friends if they have any knowledge about it,” Fletcher said. “If somebody needs to get a dog spayed — and they choose to do that and they need help — we’re more than happy to try to help people in that situation instead of having somebody try to do it that is not experienced.”

Even though the white-and-tan pitbull was rescued, she did not survive the surgery.

“Obviously, the animal suffered a great deal. She was severely infected, the sutures were not appropriate, the incision line was not appropriate,” Fletcher said. “Our vet was unable to clean up the suture line and actually repair her, so she had to be euthanized. We would much rather help somebody if they don’t know how or what to do, and if they have a dog that needs a spay, we would rather help than have them in that kind of situation.”

According to The Sacramento Bee, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office mentioned how terrible the circumstances were in a news release.

“The condition of this dog was horrifying, and whoever performed the spay surgery did so in an unprofessional manner prior to this dog being dumped in Clarksburg,” the news release said.

For further information on affordable spaying resources, the Yolo County Animal Services Shelter is available to help. Koreena Walsh, the assistant at the Yolo County Animal Services Shelter, noted that the organization helps with such services.

“Our organization helps foster and adopt out abandoned animals, provides resources for low-cost spay/neuter and veterinary care for owners, and maintains an office at the Yolo County Animal Services Shelter so that we can work closely with the shelter to offer more life-saving programs for animals and the community in general,” Walsh said via email.

 

 

Written by: Stella Tran — city@theaggie.org

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