Pups left for dead after being dumped down charity chute

Date Published: 07-Feb-2011

By Dara Bradley

Heartless brutes left two puppies for dead after dumping them down St Vincent de Paul’s bag chute at Ozanam House in Galway City.

Remarkably Vincent and Heather, believed to be 10-12 week old terrier cross pups, were not injured despite falling about 10 feet in the chute, which is used for donating clothes and other items to SVP out of hours.

The incident happened on Monday night or early Tuesday morning of last week. SVP volunteers arrived at St Augustine Street on Tuesday and found the terrified puppies – they hadn’t even been put into a bag or box to comfort their fall down the chute.

The Galway Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA) was called and the organisation has since found a foster home for the pups.

GSPCA suspects the pups were dumped by irresponsible owners who wanted to get rid of them, rather than a callous ‘prank’ by youngsters.

Margaret O’Sullivan of GSPCA told The Connacht Sentinel that the pups had a lucky escape, as she condemned the cruelty.“Once again we are left speechless at the carelessness and utter stupidity of what some so-called humans can do,” she said.

“They didn’t give a damn about the plight of these helpless pups or what suffering their actions could have caused them. The pups could have landed on something hard and suffered broken bones, or head injuries. Bags could have come down on top of them suffocating them, but their owner didn’t care."

Ms O’Sullivan said this is GSPCA’s first experience of animals being dumped down chutes although the organisation is all too familiar with cases of kittens and puppies being abandoned on the side of the road, or out in the countryside.

She said GSPCA and other animal welfare groups are “sick and tired” of people not heeding their advice about neutering, which could prevent this sort of cruelty.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel