MONCTON, N.B. — Chuck Prince considers himself a “dog guy” and is haunted by what he and his son discovered in woods last weekend while hunting.
They found the skeletal remains of a dog that was apparently left in a staked-down cage to die.
“To me, it looked like it was there a minimum of four months,” Prince, of Lower Coverdale, N.B., said in an interview.
“It was horrible. The dog probably barked and begged for a week.”
Prince and his son were walking along on an old overgrown farm road in Mary’s Point, N.B., on Saturday when they saw something up ahead.
“We observed a cage and I thought it was a trap at first,” said Prince, who owns three dogs.
When they got closer they realized it was a kennel-style cage. There was no opening except for the bottom, which someone covered with wire mesh to close it off.
Prince said the cage was staked to the ground and he believes this wasn’t the case of an animal wandering into a trap.
He said he can’t understand the mentality of someone who would do that to a dog.
“How do they sleep at night? Do all that, then go home and go to bed at night?” he asked.
“If you want to get rid of your dog, you can give it away, take it to the SPCA or let it go in the woods and someone might find it. This is the cruelest thing you can do.”
Prince said they didn’t get a close enough to see if the dog was wearing a collar. The hunters didn’t report their find to the police or SPCA and the cage and its contents remain where they found it.
Paul Melanson, chief animal protection officer for the New Brunswick SPCA, said if they do get a report, they will investigate, even if there’s no chance of catching the person responsible.
“We would still go out and take a look and at least see what’s been done,” he said. “It is disappointing if it was deliberately done.”