News : Dog owner seeks changes after pet was put down an hour after leaving house

Shane Powers carried his injured dog, Sadie, out of his Vinton house, on the afternoon of July 4.

An hour later, Sadie was dead – put to sleep in the back of the city dog catcher’s truck; her body had already been incinerated.

The chain of events that led to Sadie’s sudden demise prompted Vinton Mayor John Watson to issue a public apology to Powers and his family during Thursday’s city council meeting.

Powers shared some of the details of the incident in a letter to city leaders. He also spoke during the meeting and answered questions afterwards.

Powers said the problems began when Sadie, age 12, ran under his car as he left his driveway in early June. A tire ran over the dog’s hind legs, breaking one. She spent a few weeks in a cast, but was still not walking on her own. On July 4, Powers said, he carried Sadie outside for her to relieve herself, and went back inside the house. A few minutes later, when Powers returned outside, Sadie was gone. The family immediately began walking through their neighborhood on Third Avenue near 13th Street. Soon they met a neighbor who told them the dog catcher had just left with her.

“If she walked that far, it was the first time in weeks that she had done so,” Powers said. He believes Sadie had entered a neighbor’s yard to eat bread crumbs tossed in the yard for the birds.

By the time that Powers and his family looked around the neighborhood and drove to the Vinton Animal Shelter to claim Sadie – Powers says it was less than an hour since he had put her outside – she was dead. Powers arrived at the shelter to see the dogcatcher, Garrett Wittmer near his truck. Sadie’s body had already been incinerated. Wittmer had taken her to veterinarian O.R. Corbett, who had determined that she was suffering and euthanized her.

“There was a lot that went wrong,” Mayor John Watson told Powers, who attended the meeting with his family and a few friends, and brought a large family portrait that included Sadie to show city leaders.

Watson said that Corbett, who often offers his services at no charge to the city, does a “tremendous job 99 percent of the time,” although the Mayor said this case is an exception.

Corbett said that when the animal control officer brought the dog to him, it appeared that she had been recently hit by a car. The veterinarian says that the dog couldn’t move her hind legs, and he heard a crunching sound from her pelvis. She also seemed to be having trouble breathing.

“She was obviously in distress,” said Corbett Friday morning.

The situation is sad, says the veterinarian.

“Nobody wants to lose a pet,” he said.

Yet, said Corbett, pet owners have a responsibility to keep their animals from running loose.

Other city council members praised Corbett’s history of helping the city and his passion to protect animals.

“He is a champion of animals, not a destroyer,” said council member Bud Maynard, who recalled an incident when someone wanted to cut down a tree, but Corbett would not permit because of a bird nest in the tree.

“He would not have put her down unless he thought she was suffering,” said Maynard.

Powers said, after the meeting, he had not attended that meeting looking for just an apology. He said he has been discussing the situation with a lawyer and plans to attend a future council meeting. He believes the city should reimburse him for part of the cost of replacing Sadie, a registered purebred yellow lab. He takes responsibility for the fact that Sadie was loose, and said he would have deserved to pay the cost of recovering her from the shelter.

He said he wants to make sure that what happened to his dog and family will not happen to anyone else in Vinton.

“I am going back till they come up with a different plan so someone has time to realize their pet is gone and able to retrieve it,” he said.

Mayor Watson said he supports a change in city policy to require a 12- to 24-hour waiting period to give pet owners a chance to find a missing animal. Some city council members, however, said that the policy should still allow for euthanizing an animal that is suffering.