A Fatal Case of Littering

Two little pups, Luke and Layla, were brought to one of our shelter volunteers last week. Layla is all black, Luke is black with a white blaze on his face and white toes. They look like maybe Lab/Pit mixes. They're about 8 weeks old and adorable. They're puppies, of course they are adorable. But not adorable enough.

There used to be five pups. But sometime last week, their owner decided he didn't want the pups and he dumped them on a roadside. In Iowa, in January, in bitter cold weather, snow and ice and wind chills approaching 25 degrees below zero.

Imagine these 5 little puppies, babies, huddling together in the snow, whimpering for their mother, growing colder, getting hungry, scared, lost and alone. Eventually one puppy stops whimpering as he succumbs to the freezing temperatures. Another grows quiet and still. And a third one lapses into silence.

A car drives by, slows, then stops. A woman gets out to investigate. Can it be? A pile of puppies in the snow? She approaches them, three are already dead, poor little things. Two are cold, so cold, but still alive. She puts the live pups in the car, then gathers the little bodies left in the snow and puts them in her car too. It's just too sad to leave them alone and unloved in the snow.

And so two of the unfortunate family are saved, and soon will be at the shelter awaiting adoption.


Two crimes were committed, both are crimes of littering.

In the first case of littering, the owner neglected to get his dog spayed. So she mated randomly and produced a litter of puppies that the owner didn't want.

In the second case of littering, the owner dumped the pups by the side of the road, like so much trash. This is not only illegal, it is immoral, particularly when the weather is so brutally cold the puppies didn't have a chance of survival.

I wonder what this person told his family and friends when they asked, "Where are the puppies?"
Perhaps he took them to a nice farm in the country.