Case of animal cruelty opened for Ally
The Garden Route SPCA has opened a case of animal cruelty after a puppy's ears were allegedly cut off with a knife by a 16-year-old boy from Eden Park in February.
On Monday 4 February the SPCA received a call about an injured puppy at a house in Eden Park, Pacaltsdorp.
Trainee inspector Andrea Auerbach and education / field officer Vanessa Lucas tended to the call immediately and found Ally (as they later named her) with her ears brutally cut off close to her head. Ally and her siblings were kept in a crate outside the house.
"We gave the puppy one look and confiscated all of them on the spot. He [the owner] tried to convince us that Ally lost both her ears when she slammed them in the door," said Auerbach.
Ally and her siblings were taken to safety that afternoon and by the Wednesday she already had a potential home.
Apart from being worm-infested, she was also diagnosed with cat flu (canine parvovirus / parvo) on Thursday afternoon and died the following Saturday, 9 February.
Upon enquiry to the SPCA, manager Frieda Jansen van Rensburg, said Ally's siblings also started to show symptoms of parvo and were humanely euthanised.
"The SPCA already has health compromised animals in our care. Therefore it is extremely risky to keep and treat parvo dogs on the premises. It is a deadly virus and extremely contagious and we cannot put all the dogs in the kennels at risk. Mainly, parvo is due to the negligence of owners who do not vaccinate their puppies," she said.
In a cases where parvo is diagnosed in a dog, Jansen van Rensburg says they treat the dog at the clinic but send it home after treatment.
"The owner must then bring the dog back every day for continuous treatment. In cases where people don't have transport the SPCA treats their parvo dogs at home."