Labrador pups thrown into river

THREE Labrador pups are lucky to be alive after being cruelly thrown into a river. However, two more, probably from the same litter, did not have the same fortunate escape when their carcasses were found in the water weighed down with rocks.

County dog warden Frankie Coote was called to the scene at Frure in Lissycasey earlier this week. It is believed that the culprit may have thrown the animals from the bridge under the cover of darkness, taking advantage of high waters following recent rain.

He said that two of the pups were saved from certain death because they landed on a ledge by the river’s edge. The third managed to make its way out into a nearby field, where it was rescued by a local person who has kindly given the dog a good home.

Following a search of the area, Mr Coote made the grim discovery of the decomposed carcasses of the other two pups. Mr Coote believes that these animals may have been thrown in the river a number of weeks ago but that they came from the same family of puppies.

He was unable to recover the remains of these pups, which he says were weighed down by rocks deliberately tied to them. The pups were all around three months old.

The two pups found on the ledge are in the care of Martina’s Baby Dog Rescue in Ennis and they will soon be brought to rescue group Irish Golden Retrievers for rehoming.

“Falling on that ledge was the only thing that saved them. It looks like somebody was taking advantage of the flood waters as a way of getting rid of these beautiful dogs. After we found the other two carcasses, which were one on top of the other and decomposed, I continued the search the next day for about a mile but that was all we found.”

The dogs appear to be pure bred, with Mr Coote describing them as “some of the nicest pups I have seen in a few years”.

“The pups are doing well with Martina. When we found them, they were very hungry. They had obviously gone a few days without food. They had eaten muck, grass and cow dung but luckily they had access to water, which is very important.

“It will take time. They are still not able to eat large amounts but they had no other injuries, so they were very lucky,” he said.

He said that local people are “incensed” that somebody could be so cruel to these animals.

“They are really mad and we are making a lot of enquiries to see who could have done this. There was no need to do this; these pups could have been re-homed. Somebody must know something. Maybe they were offered a pup from a very large litter in recent weeks. If anybody knows anything about this, they should contact us at the pound.”

Jessica Quinn