A group of puppies, who were abandoned on a rural road in Oxford County, were rescued by teams from Waterloo Region over the past weekend.
On Saturday, a Good Samaritan spotted a group of dogs wandering along a rural road between Innerkip and Bright before calling the authorities.
This prompted a response from local organizations, including Pawsitively Furever and Ground Search and Rescue KW, who spent the next 48 hours locating and rescuing the dogs.
“They were pretty unrecognizable,” said Paige Chambers, executive director and founder of Pawsitively Furever. “A lot of these pups are so matted, like there’s three to four inches of matting, so some of them, if you’re really looking, you wouldn’t know that they’re on the ground. They’re covered in (knots), they’re covered in burrs, they’re covered in ticks.”
Chambers expects that these puppies may have come from a puppy mill, a dog breeding facility that profits from selling dogs, often prioritizing profits over the care of the animals.
“People don’t realize that these things are happening; they don’t realize the length of the problem that we do have in Ontario with puppy mills, dogs being abandoned, with people surrendering dogs,” said Chambers.
They found more than a dozen Shih Tzu-breed dogs, who have since received extensive care from a number of organizations and humane societies.
Those organizations are still looking to find out who is responsible for abandoning these dogs.
“We would like to be able to find the person that did this and have some justice for these dogs, because none of them deserve this,” said Chambers.
Oxford County OPP said they are investigating the case of animal cruelty involving the young dogs, and sadly, one dog was also located deceased in a ditch in the Township Road 8 area on Sunday. The Provincial Animal Welfare Service has taken over that investigation and anyone with information can contact the agency at 1-833-926-4625.
