Two puppies were snatched and dumped, barely alive, back over their owner’s fence in a bizarre mauling, according to the RSPCA.
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The family had left the pets in the backyard in Glen Innes while they went away for a couple of nights. When they returned, the animals were nearly dead, with their throats badly gored. They had to be put down.
The RSPCA was called to the scene and concluded that the dogs had been attacked by other dogs, perhaps fighting dogs.
It fears that dog baiters took the puppies to use to toughen up older animals.
Other theories are that someone has a grudge against the family and butchered the dogs in revenge for some unknown grievance. One other possibility is that the puppies were stolen to be trained for pig-hunting but that the thieves’ other dogs then turned on the newcomers.
The RSPCA’s Brigitte Burridge said: “It’s either some very unsavoury people who did it to take dogs for baiting or someone took them to use them for pig hunters and the other dogs attacked”.
When the Examiner arrived at the scene in Innes Street in Glen Innes, there was still blood on the fence of the garden where the injured dogs had been thrown back. The RSPCA has discounted the idea that the two puppies were attacked by the owner’s other dogs within the back garden compound.
The owner, Mark Atkinson, said that when he arrived home on Saturday night “the two pups were badly mauled but still alive.”
The two puppies were 20 months old. He had been in the process of giving his dogs to the RSPCA.
The police were called but it’s not known how far their investigations have gone.