“I was working and he walked right up to the edge of the door,” said Richey who works at the N. E Street location in Hamilton. “I started giving him some dog biscuits and Slim Jims and that gained his trust because he walked right up to me. I emptied my tip jar and filled it with water and put him in the office until the dog warden got here.”
“He was really gentile and was definitely hungry,” Richey said.
A post on the Butler County Dog Warden’s Facebook page yielded several tips and led Butler County Dog Warden Kurt Merbs to Jessica North, 34, and her fiancé, Christopher Sears, 31, both of Hamilton.
Both told Merbs that each time they fed the dog it “would go throw up and just lay around,” he said.
However, they never sought medical treatment for the dog, according to Merbs.
“They said that somebody left their basement door open and the dog went down through the basement and just wandered off,” he said.
North and Sears now face charges of cruelty to a companion animal, a felony, and failure to license an animal, a misdemeanor.
Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones called the situation one of the worst cases of animal cruelty he has ever seen.
“We aren’t sure if this poor dog will survive at this point, but he is being cared for at the West Side Animal Clinic for now. Everyone is doing everything they can to save him. I will do whatever it takes to see that those responsible are held accountable for the condition this animal is in.”
About the Author