
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990                   TAG: 9007200484
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Peter Mathews
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

MANY ANIMALS PUT IN DUMPSTERS

Some people don't take unwanted animals to shelters where they might find homes. They take them to dumpsters instead.

"They're dumping animals left and right at the dumpster sites," said L.W. Wooddell, a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy. Wooddell said he has charged four people in the last six months with cruelty to animals.

Tim McCoy, the county's public works director, said it is more common to find unwanted animals around dumpsters than in them. Sometimes that's because people rescue them.

But only sometimes.

"God knows how many get dumped and covered up with trash," McCoy said. "It's totally inhumane to put the little fellas in something like a dumpster and let the truck mash them up. That just ain't right."

Usually, those people aren't caught. But on Wednesday, General District Judge Ray Grubbs ordered a Shawsville man who put four caged kittens in a dumpster to pay $675.50 in fines.

Grubbs, who took the case under advisement for a year, ordered the defendant to donate $500 to the Humane Society and reimburse the society $175.50 for veterinary costs.

As for the kittens, three have been adopted and the fourth is at the shelter waiting for a home, Wooddell said.

by CNB