by “Beyond disturbing.” That’s how April Pelland describes how the tiny Westie Cross who came into her care was found. The tiny white dog was taped inside a box and thrown into a ditch to freeze or starve to death on the side of a Canadian highway.
Luckily for the dog, he was spotted by a resident after they saw the box move and got suspicious. But that was only after several people drove by the box on the wintery road.
“I can’t wrap my head around locking this dog inside of a vacuum box and just chucking him into a ditch,” April tells CBC news. Pelland, who works with Save A Dog Network Canada, got a call from a councillor in the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, just south of Winnipeg, to help save the dog. The dog is now at home with her and was named “Gimli” by her daughter after Gimli, Manitoba, a place they spent time of in the summer.
Gimli has taken a real shine to her 6-year-old and is getting along great with April’s other animals – dogs and cats.
April Pelland
“He seems to get along with them fine, he’s not aggressive, you know he’s respectful of the ones that don’t want to have anything to do with him,” she tells CTV News. “He’s been really good with the cats which is surprising for a terrier, they usually like attacking small animals. And he loves my daughter, he loves my six-year-old, as soon as he saw her that was his person.”
Gimli appears to be a West Highland white terrier cross and around 2 years old, he is unneutered and had no tattoo, microchip or tags. “He’s a little on the skinny side but not horribly emaciated, he was dirty,” April said. “Got him home and first thing he did was jump into that bathtub.”
Now April is posting up information on social media about Gimli to determine if he was perhaps stolen, although she says that’s not usually the case with dogs like Gimli.
“Being in the country, unfortunately, we see it too often,”April says. “People think it’s a good place to dump their unwanted pets, and finding boxes of kittens and puppies is not uncommon, unfortunately.”
April Pelland
Her next step is to get Gimli back to full health and then hopefully find him a forever home. She’s just hoping that people learn there are better options for getting rid of a pet than what was done to poor Gimli. She prompts people in such circumstances to reach out to a rescue.
“Most rescues won’t ask questions. They won’t say ‘oh that’s a stupid reason,’ we try not to judge, People’s circumstances change, life changes and we’re aware of that. We see it all the time with these dogs, right? We just wish somebody would reach out to us before it got to what it came to here.”
