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An investigation is underway after a dog was forgotten after an adoption event and left for 6 days, without food or water, in the back of a parked Chicago animal control van.
“Missy” was taken to a Chicago Wolves hockey game for an adoption event along with several other dogs. She reportedly was “having problems” at the event and had to be placed in the van. While the other dogs at the event were adopted, Missy was forgotten in the back of the van.
After the event was over, the van was parked in a city parking lot, about a mile away from the Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC) facility.
When a CACC volunteer found her, 6 days later, she was barely alive.
“As soon as we learned of this incident yesterday we immediately had our veterinarian give the dog a complete medical examination, which found no health issues,” CACC spokesman Brad Powers told NBC Chicago.
Thankfully, Missy is now doing well. But, police as well as CACC are investigating how the incident could have happened – and how to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
“We take this seriously because it is completely unacceptable and not in keeping with the level of care we expect our employees to provide,” said Powers. “While preliminarily this appears to be an accident, nothing like this has ever happened before and we are committed to ensuring it never happens again.”
A Chicago Police spokesperson said that animal neglect charges are unlikely, but possible as the investigation continues.
The Wolves chairman, Don Levin, a huge animal lover and supporter of animal rescue has requested “that the person who is responsible for this unconscionable, life-threatening mistake is never involved with any Wolves activities in the future.”
With a clean bill of health and a lot of luck on her side, Missy is ready to find a loving forever home where she’ll never again be forgotten.
Deb Speelman
says:This is a horrible thing that should have never happened. My first question is, how could they??? My second question is, why hasn’t that person been fired? Lastly, they adopted dogs out at an event? No vetting of the adopters to make sure they were responsible people? What kind of organization IS this?
Animal Lover
says:Adoption events are not uncommon, and responsible organizations will take the name and other personal information of the person looking to adopt, and then do a background check on the person, including contacting friends and relatives of the potential adopter, and possibly make a visit to the home before allowing the person to take the dog home with them. The shelter I adopted both my dogs from do adoption events (though I visited the shelter both times I was interested in adopting), and this shelter does extensive background checking of their potential adopters. They called my vet, and called a friend of mine who lives in another state to check up on me before allowing me to adopt the dogs.
In the case of Missy, a mistake was made (and I am not defending these people), and thankfully she is OK, and hopefully they determined who was ultimately responsible and fired the person to help ensure something like this never happens again.