Grisly find but cause of death not determined

In more than 24 years of service to the SPCA, shelter manager and inspector Lorna Hutchinson thought she had seen it all, until recently.

Mrs Hutchinson was called to a Baberton Place property at the end of last month where the present occupant’s dogs had dug up a shallow grave containing the bodies of several animals.

The remains of a German shepherd, an adult female short-haired cat along with two kittens and a teenage cat, were all found stuffed inside two plastic bags.

Mrs Hutchinson and one of her staff members had to exhume the bodies from the shallow grave.

‘‘The smell of that you will never forget,’’ she said. ‘‘ The owners tied their dogs up to have their dinner and the dogs would have smelt the animals and started to dig them up. The owner could see fur coming out.’’

Mrs Hutchinson said the owners put the remains in new plastic bags and buried the carcasses away from the house.

‘‘I felt really sorry for the young couple who found them,’’ she said.

The remains were inspected by a vet who was unable to determine the cause of death because of their decomposed state.

‘‘They didn’t find any broken bones with the dog but because they were so decomposed they couldn’t tell what happened. We don’t know how they were put down. They could have been gassed.’’