This is 100% serious, one of my good friends bought a foreclosed home, which was in disrepair and plans on flipping it. He does this for a living and is pretty good at it. He's shared stories of how people abandon pets in there (he has never seen it first hand) or how they damage the property intentionally (this he has seen first hand).
Today what he shared had both he and I in tears. I cannot understand why someone would do this to a little animal! The home had a real bad stench to it and a few pet urine stains so Mike was pulling up the carpet and laying down hardwood. He said there were obvious signs of a previous pet like chewed door jams and some white pet hairs in the carpet. He thought the carpet was the reason for the stench. He said he replaced all the flooring, repainted a few areas, and the stench still persisted. Mike said he went through the attic and crawlspace in depth thinking it may be a squirrel or perhaps a skunk which had died.
Well, fast forward to yesterday and Mike had finally given up and just figured it was a dead rat or something behind the wall. In the process of knocking down the kitchen wall to expand a room he noticed an area that looked like it had a new drywall and was a little bulged, under the counter. He figured water damage at one point and a shoddy home repair.
*** DO NOT READ PAST HERE IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH ***
So, he tears down the drywall the stench made him lose his lunch. He said as he removed the sheet rock a moist and decaying corpse of a dog, what looked to be a white terrier, fell to the ground. He said the drywall had scrapes and claw marks on it where the animal was sealed behind the sheet-rock and tried to claw it's way out. Of course it only had like 3" or so so it couldn't move very well at all. Mike said ultimately it died of dehydration and did not suffocate. He said it was probably a long and horrid death.
He has contacted law enforcement and they brushed it off a little, evidently they see abandoned pets from time to time in foreclosures but nothing like this! They said they'll try to work with the bank to find the previous owner and press animal cruelty charges.
Mike said this was clearly someones pet and it was actually buried alive along with a pet toy. There was no collar to be found but he said you could see around the scruff of the neck where it was used to wearing an ID collar. It did have a flea collar on.
HOW COULD SOMEONE DO THIS!??! Being a vet, I've seen some clear signs of animal abuse but nothing to this magnitude.
-Dr. Punjab
