Animal welfare groups’ response to abuse too little

Thursday, March 9, 2006

For the past few years, my family and I have called Prince George’s Animal Management (PGAM) about one dog. This dog is a sweet rottweiler who has horrible people as her caretakers. Each time these people go out of town, sometimes for a week or more, they throw dog food into the yard and she is supposed to ration her food until they return — not that their return necessarily means she will be fed. Each time they do this, we call PGAM. Nothing happens.

This is not isolated to her feedings. She has a bucket to drink out of, when there is water. If it snows in the winter, she has ice, not water. For days she will kick at the bucket of ice, until finally someone comes to give her fresh water or it melts.

While all of this has been difficult to comprehend, I have reached the end of my rope with PGAM and the local Rottweiler Breed Rescue Group.

The weekend of Feb. 25, I woke up every hour to the sound of this dog kicking her empty water bucket around her pen. The same thing happened for a few nights. March 1 I noticed that someone went out to the dog’s pen, removed the bucket, and locked her in the pen. The bucket now resides beside their back door.

Having thus far gotten nowhere with PGAM, I called the local breed rescue. Not only did I not receive any helpful information, the woman who gave the information had the nastiest attitude. After listening to me tell her the dog had not been fed or watered for about five days the most helpful thing she said was that animal management would not remove the dog unless the ribs were showing because the dog had food, water and shelter.

I called PGAM to ask exactly how many ribs had to be showing and was asked for the address, but they did not answer my question. I was also given the number of a field supervisor. Since he does not answer his phone, I left a message about this dog. As seems to be their standard operating procedure, nothing happened.

If a dog who is supposed to weigh between 85 and 115 pounds but is smaller than my healthy 80-pound Labrador retriever is not neglected and deserving of rescue, who is?

Natasha Pettigrew, Cheverly