It was a rough start to the week for Mobile County Animal Shelter staff on Monday, July 1, 2019. Staff arrived to find four hungry, thirsty, wet, and oxygen-deprived puppies in a sealed container on the front porch, abandoned without explanation.
The puppies, just weeks old, were dropped off by an as-yet unidentified driver at 9:21 p.m. and endured nine hours without food, water, or fresh air. “That’s like putting someone in a container and dropping them in the ocean,” Stubbs compared. The pups were covered in their own filth and were damp to the touch, “probably because the container was closed,” staff speculated.
These puppies, despite their disorienting overnight ordeal, were lucky. In recent weeks, MCAS staff tragically found two abandoned animals dead outside the property. They “were hit by cars because someone tied them up on the property,” staff recalled. These four puppies, however, although in poor condition, all managed to survive.
Ditching unwanted animals, even outside a shelter, is illegal. There’s a proper way to do things, Stubbs said, and the shelter is now reaching out to its followers for information on the person who abandoned the puppies. The hope is that by making each criminal offense visible to the local community, fewer and fewer acts of negligence will occur.
“MCAS has had another litter of puppies abandoned at our door after hours,” they began. “In this instance, there was a degree of cruelty involved as the puppies were left in a sealed container, with no food, no water, and no fresh oxygen for over 9 hours.”
The shelter requested that anybody with any information should get in touch. “Abandoning animals is a crime,” they stated, reminding people to reach out to their local animal shelter or rescue organization for assistance. “Please don’t endanger animals’ lives by dropping them off somewhere you think they will be found,” they posted.
“The outcome for these puppies could have been very different.”
“You wouldn’t do that to a baby,” Stubbs chimed in, thoughtfully, “so why would you do that to a dog? There are standards for both,” he continued, “It’s an animal. It’s a live animal.”
There are four shelters in Mobile County, Alabama. With four shelters, many hands on deck, and just as many hearts in the right place, there are better solutions to rehoming unwanted puppies than to leave them alone in a sealed container to suffer through the night.
There’s a silver lining to this all-too-familiar cloud, however; MCAS staff believe that the four little puppies are chihuahua-mix breeds. They’re certainly adorable, and they have all survived their ordeal with commendable strength and stoicism. With any luck, they will all be adopted.
Fingers crossed for the little fighters.
