An Augusta County dog was shot in the leg on Thursday evening, and a local rescue organization has stepped in to ensure the best outcome possible for the eight-month old puppy.
The lab mix, known as Little Girl, is resting overnight at Westwood Animal Hospital before meeting with an orthopedic surgeon at Virginia Veterinary Specialists in Charlottesville on Tuesday to determine if surgery is an option to save her leg.
The availability of the treatment comes after a public plea for funds by Dogs Deserve Better Blue Ridge on social media. The community stepped up to raise more than $7,000 in less than 24 hours.
The estimate for surgery for Little Girl ranges from $4,500 to $5,500. Amputation, if surgery isn’t an option, will run approximately $1,200.
The Augusta County dog owner, Jessica, who rents a home off Furnace Road in the town of Craigsville, has three to four neighbors. The dog had slipped loose from the yard when she went to bring her inside due to frigid temperatures.
Little Girl, and one other dog who escaped, were only gone for a couple of minutes when the family heard a gunshot. When Little Girl came running back, she was bleeding profusely from her hind leg. The bullet had entered and exited her leg leaving her bone shattered.
With no money for an emergency vet, the family called 911 to report the shooting and sought guidance from a family member who is a vet tech. They worked to clean the wound, stop the bleeding and administer pain relief.
Because DDBBR had recently stopped in to see if the family needed any assistance with their dogs, the family also reached out to them, according to Kimberly Hawk, founder of Dogs Deserve Better Blue Ridge.
“I was worried,” Hawk said. She said she told the family they couldn’t “just do home care for this.”
Hawk said she met the family and Little Girl at Westwood Veterinary Hospital on Saturday morning. When they learned that amputation or surgery would be necessary, Hawk said, Jessica started crying.
“The thought of amputation to a lot of people is just so horrific,” Hawk said. “She’s only eight months old, so we felt like at that age, she’s a nice dog, wouldn’t it be nice to save her leg?”
Hawk said the organization rarely steps in to do emergency surgeries like this for dogs, but they made an exception in this case, hoping to get the sweet dog back on her feet.
“It’s a young dog. It’s a friendly dog. The people are very nice and love their dogs. They just didn’t have any money, so it checked a lot of boxes for us,” Hawk said.
Little Girl isn’t the first dog to be shot by a neighbor in the last year or so.
Joeseph and Edith Sande’s husky, Buddy Bear, was shot and killed last fall by a neighbor, Louis Edward Davis, on Mormon Gap Road in Augusta County. Like Little Girl, Bear had escaped his fence and was gone only a few minutes when he was shot. Davis pleaded no contest to a felony charge of animal cruelty and received an active sentence of six months of incarceration in June.
No suspect has been named in Little Girl’s shooting.
An investigator with the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office reportedly talked with neighbors Thursday night after the 911 call and were out at the premises again on Monday, according to Hawk.
“There has to be at least some kind of accountability,” Hawk said she told the animal control officer in the case, “letting them understand the seriousness of firing a firearm at night, not just towards dogs, but where people could be around or anything.”
The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday night the investigation is ongoing.
“They are doing an investigation, and that’s all we can ask them to do,” Hawk said. “Hopefully, they can figure out what happened.”
Related stories
- Advocates disappointed in ‘light’ sentences in recent animal cruelty cases
- Augusta County man who killed PTSD veteran’s service dog gets six months in jail
- Justice for Koi: Swoope man sentenced in case of dog with severe burns
- Virginia military veteran speaks out about service dog’s murder, justice ahead of court date
- Explainer: Details of the case involving the Augusta County man who killed a vet’s service dog
- New to Virginia, Augusta County military vet’s service dog shot and killed by neighbor
Share
Crystal Graham
