Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 6, 1992 TAG: 9203060280
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: MCCOY LENGTH: Medium
A dog taken sometime before Tuesday morning also still is missing.
The foxes apparently were let loose from their cages Sunday. Shelter officials learned Thursday that one of them, named Kottie, had been shot and killed near the shelter. Renne, a silver fox, still is missing.
"Please don't shoot him. Call us!" Holly Savage, assistant manager of the shelter, said in a plea for Renne's safe return. The shelter's number is 552-6546.
Chris Bach, shelter manager, said she talked to Al Vaden, a county animal control officer, on Thursday and learned that the dead fox had been picked up Monday.
The man who shot the fox evidently wasn't sure what the animal was but thought it was acting strangely, Vaden said Thursday afternoon.
"The way it was described to me, the guy made an honest mistake," Bach said.
The dead fox was sent to the state Environmental Health Department to be tested for rabies. The rabies test was canceled, Bach said, once it was discovered that the dead fox was Kottie.
Bach said she knows the animals were at the shelter Sunday morning.
"There's no way that they got out of the cage on their own," Bach said of the foxes.
Bach said whoever let the foxes loose were mistaken if they thought they were doing the animals a favor by freeing them. The foxes had been pen-raised and would not survive in the wild, she said.
The dog, a Pekingese that is a pet of a shelter worker, was discovered missing Tuesday morning.
by CNB