On Friday Aug. 15, Carlina Szeligowski of Georgetown Road came home to a devastating sight. She found that her pet goat, Gabby, had been killed by a dog.
“My husband went to run some errands and left the goat on a leash outside like we always do,” Ms. Szeligowski explained. However, when her husband returned, he found a bloody-faced dog eating the goat.
He was unable to catch the dog, but Mr. Szeligowski was able to get a few pictures of it. The dog, a light gray colored husky wearing a purple harness, was not one Mr. Szeligowski or any of their neighbors recognized.
 |
| RIP Gabby |
They called animal control, but by the time Mr. Harper arrived, there was nothing he could do for poor Gabby, and the dog had run off.
Ms. Szeligowski was heartbroken. She had been given the goat as a birthday present in May and, she said, she loved Gabby dearly. “You wouldn’t believe how intelligent Gabby was,” Ms. Szeligowski said.
The search begins
Mr. Harper described it as “a vicious attack” and began looking for the dog immediately.
Chris Muir, the town’s assistant animal control officer, went door-to-door in the neighborhood with the picture of the dog, checking to see if anyone had any information. Some motorists had reporting seeing it running in the road — notable because of the blood on its muzzle — but had been unable to catch it.
Mr. Harper and Mr. Muir checked the current dog license information on file and discovered only one husky registered within a one-mile radius of the Szeligowski’s house — but that dog had since died.
However, at Mr. Harper’s urging, the town recently underwent an aggressive campaign urging residents to follow state law and license their dogs or face steep fines. Due to the overwhelmingly positive response, Mr. Harper said, many of the new license applications had not yet been entered into the town’s computer system.
Donna Anastasia, town clerk, said at the end of August the town had already registered about 1,300 dog licenses, the most it ever has, especially this soon after the July 1 deadline.
So Mr. Harper and Mr. Muir spent the next couple weeks going through by hand all of the paperwork that had not yet been entered into the computer system.
On Aug. 26, the animal control officers’ detective work paid off.
Mr. Harper said they found a husky in the Georgetown area that had not been previously registered. When they went to the house, they discovered it was not the dog they were looking for.
However, there was another husky there that belonged to the homeowner’s son, who was visiting from Vermont.
“That was the killer,” Mr. Harper said.
He was told the dog had indeed escaped from the yard a few weeks back, and when it returned blood stained, the homeowners assumed it had found a dead wild animal in the woods.
Mr. Harper said the dog is “being deported from Connecticut, with orders never to return again.”
The owner was fined and also agreed to reimburse the Szeligowskis for the cost of Gabby the goat.
But of course, Mr. Harper said, it’s impossible to reimburse someone fully for the loss of a pet.
“I’m just glad we were able to use the information we had to track down the dog and get it out of Weston,” Mr. Harper said. “I have to give credit to all the people who have come forward to do the right thing and license their dogs. That’s really what helped us to locate this killer.”
(The Weston Forum - Sept 4, 2014)
No comments:
Post a Comment