WARNING: This post contains a graphic image
BROCKTON, Mass. (WHDH) — The MSPCA-Angell’s Law Enforcement Department is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the heat-stroke death of a young Chihuahua found abandoned in a carrier outside an animal hospital in Brockton Tuesday, officials said.
The dog was trapped, unconscious and foaming at the mouth when officials at the Animal Protection Center of Southeastern Massachusetts found the carrier halfway up the property’s driveway in sweltering 90-degree temperatures.
Shelter manager, Joyce Caranci, took the dog to Lloyd Animal Medical Center in Stoughton but she died en route, officials said. The dog’s temperature registered 110 degrees on a thermometer reading, which doctors say is about nine degrees higher than standard canine body temperature.
“When I took her out, I thought she was already deceased but I felt a heartbeat,” Caranci told 7News. “I had her in my lap and part way there I could not feel a heartbeat anymore.”
The shelter says the dog weighed only 10 pounds. She was brown and white, and appeared otherwise in very good condition. She wore no ID tags nor was she microchipped.
There are no leads on a possible suspect at this time, according to investigators.
A charge of animal cruelty is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Anyone with information is urged to call the MSPCA’s Law Enforcement tip line at 800-628-5808.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)