Political Crossfire Forums

[acerbus80]

Quote: 2 PETA workers charged with abducting hunting dog


NORFOLK – Two employees from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have been charged with abducting a hunting dog in Southampton County.

At about 10 a.m. Wednesday, a witness reported seeing two women in a vehicle with PETA markings take the dog from the side of Meherrin Road (Va. 35), said Detective Cpl. Richard Morris of the Southampton County Sheriff’s Office.

A witness alerted the county animal control officer – who happened to own the dog. The officer stopped the vehicle soon after and, finding his dog inside, turned the case over to a colleague, Morris said.

The dog’s radio tracking collar had been removed and was found near where the women reportedly picked up the animal, Morris added.

The two women were released and not charged at the time, Morris said. Arrest w arrants were issued later .

Morris identified the two as Carrie Beth Edwards, 26, of Hampton Boulevard, Norfolk, and Andrea Florence Benoit, 25, of Henwick Court, Chesapeake.

Each has been charged with grand larceny and petit larceny for taking the dog and radio collar, respectively.

The two women are expected to surrender at the sheriff’s office today, Morris said.

PETA issued a statement Thursday saying the two had done nothing wrong.

“They found a dog alongside a busy highway and picked her up for her own safety,” the statement read. “That’s what we tell everyone to do when they encounter strays – stop and assist.”

The statement said the women were calling in the dog’s tag numbers to the PETA office to help find the owner when they were approached by the officer who owned the dog, which they immediately turned over.

There is no leash law in Southampton County, Morris said, so dogs are allowed to run free. PETA said its workers did not know this, adding that this law “needs to be changed for the animals’ own safety.”

# Reach Matthew Jones at (757) 446-2949 or matthew.jones@pilotonline.com.
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=113319&ran=5

Oh, they were just calling peta to find out who the dog belonged to. Guess that pesky tracking collar must have gotten in the way of the tags, and was too heavy to get in the van.

This is bad news for PeTA right now, especially with 2 of their current employees already going to court for cruelty to animal charges next month.

[David]

Let them try that around here and they may be dodging some lead.Good hunting dogs are very expensive.You can easily pay 1000 dollars for one.

[acerbus80]

The dog's owner is just lucky that the peta employees only had a car and not their death van, other wise the dog would have been dead before they even put it back into drive.

[TNBiologist]

Its PETA, no one expects any better of them. Your right they did get lucky, a really good hunting dog is expensive and time consuming to train. If they had killed the dog (as they are known to do) the charges could have been much worse.

[acerbus80]

Even though they didn't kill the dog, I can't really see them weasling their way out of this one.

Apparantly there were markings on the collar identifying the owner, so there was no need for them to contact peta in the first place.

Second off, they ditched the tracking collar on the side of the road. Why? A peta spokeswoman had this to say about the tracking collar:

" PETA spokeswoman Erin Edwards said the two women did nothing wrong and were only picking up the dog to ensure its safety. She said PETA opposes tracking collars because they can malfunction and cause painful burns.
(http://www.wvec.com/news/topstories/stories/wvec_local_102606_coon_peta.78e79521.html )

My family used to hunt with hounds, and we went through plenty of tracking collars without a single one of them malfunctioning and causing painful burns of any kind. If they were truly worried about the collar harming the dog, they could have simply taken it off and taken it with them in the car and returned it to the owner.

When it comes down to it, they left the collar so they couldn't be tracked. That dog is just damn lucky to be alive.

Also, the two women turned themselves in today and were released on an unsecured bond for 2,500 dollars.