A dog was found taped shut inside a vacuum box in a ditch in rural Manitoba on Monday.
The dog, which appears to be a West Highland White Terrier cross, was discovered by a passing motorist near Ste. Agathe who saw the box move, according to April Pelland,a volunteer with Save a Dog Network Canada.
“Disgust, really the first reaction was just disgust,” said Pelland, “Not shock though because working in rescue you hear all the stories, but just I couldn’t believe it like I just felt sick to my stomach, like how long had this poor thing been out there?”
An area councillor called Pelland and asked if she would be willing to take the dog in.
She said the dog was in better shape than she thought he would be.
“He’s a little on the skinny side but not horribly emaciated, he was dirty,” she said. “Got him home and first thing he did was jump into that bathtub.”
Pelland has other dogs, cats and a young daughter at home and she says the dog is fitting in well so far.
“He seems to get along with them fine, he’s not aggressive, you know he’s respectful of the ones that don’t want to have anything to do with him,” she said. “He’s been really good with the cats which is surprising for a terrier, they usually like attacking small animals. And he loves my daughter, he loves my six-year-old, as soon as he saw her that was his person.”
Pelland said the normal procedure for situations like this is to get the dog healthy and then find a rescue centre that would be willing to place the dog up for adoption, preferably outside of Manitoba.
“Because Manitoba has such a huge stray overpopulation of dogs here in Manitoba that they usually go out west, sometimes out east, but they normally don’t stay here,” she said.
Pelland said while finding a dog abandoned and taped up inside a closed box is rare, she says people will often leave dogs or cats in rural areas with the hopes that they’ll survive or be taken in.
“You find boxes of puppies and kittens, but usually left somewhere for somebody to find them,” she said. “Not that they’re trying to kill them, they’re just dumping them and leaving them to be somebody else’s problem.”
Pelland said they named the dog ‘Gimli,’ a nod to the Manitoba summer retreat where her family spent a couple of weeks this past summer.
For anyone wanting to get rid of a pet, Pelland said there are clearly better options.
As for the right thing to do, “Would be to reach out to a rescue. Most rescues won’t ask questions. They won’t say ‘oh that’s a stupid reason,’ we try not to judge, People’s circumstances change, life changes and we’re aware of that. We see it all the time with these dogs right? We just wish somebody would reach out to us before it got to what it came to here.”
Source: April Pelland/Facebook
