On Tuesday 27th April the Rainbow Rehoming Centre recieved a call from a distressed member of the public who had been walking along the River Finn in Clady on Saturday evening a made a gruesome discovery. Her and her husband stopped at the edge of the river bank at a large stone pillar what appears to be the remains of an old bridge. They found on top of this pillar a dead dog.
After they informed us of this yesterday myself and Helen went to the location which was very remote indeed.
Working in an animal welfare organisation you think you have seen it all but we haven't. We had to park at Clady cemetary, walk through the cemetary over a turnstyle and over 200 yards along the river until we came to this pillar.
This pillar stands at approx 8 feet tall on the side of the bank with a 15 foot drop into the river on the other 3 sides. On top of the pillar was the remains of a small to medium sized dog, possibly a terrier type. We believe the dog to have been dead for some time, possibly 3 / 4 weeks.
The most disturbing aspect of this case is that this dog had been put on top of this pillar and left there. There is no possibility that this small dog climbed this 8ft stone wall by itself. I climbed this wall to get on top of the pillar and it was difficult to do so a small dog did not get on here by itself. It had been put there by someone, and when on there it had no way down, because of the height the dog would have been too frightened to jump, therefore this dog has remained on top of this pillar until it has died of dehydration or starvation.
We have no idea how long this dog remained here but what we do know is that this must have been a horrific death for this helpless dog, terrified, confused, cold, hungry, thirsty and alone. It's body lay as though it had fallen forward through weakness and died with both front legs tucked in under its body, both back legs stretched out behind and it's tongue handing out of it's mouth.
To abandon a dog is a heartless, cowardly and irresponsible crime for any human to commit but to abandon it in this sadistic and cruel way is quite unbelievable and the extremely disturbed individual or individuals who are responsible for this are a very worrying reflection on our society.
The remote location of this pillar shows that the person responsible for this went out of their way to do this when it would have been much easier to ring the dog warden to collect the dog if this was an unwanted pet but we do wonder was this an unwanted pet or was this dog found as a stray by a sadistic individual. Sadly we will never know. If it was an unwanted pet it probably thought it was out for a walk with its owner that day, little did it know it was going to be abandoned, stranded and left to die.
We are appealing to anyone in the Clady / Omagh or surrounding areas with any info on this dog to please contact the Rainbow Centre on 028 71 812882.
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