THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610050035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 93 lines
BY HIS OWN ADMISSION Ronald Lee just went crazy in the Culpepper County Animal Shelter last July 4.
He tossed an old copying machine out the shelter window. Then he knocked over two filing cabinets, turned over a desk and knocked a locked door off its hinges.
Just because the shelter employees had killed Rusty, his 5-year-old dog. You'd think a 37-year-old man would have better control of himself than that. But when you talk to Ronald a little bit . . . you begin to wonder if Culpeper County isn't a little out of control itself.
``What I did was wrong,'' Ronald said. ``And I've said so from the git-go. All I've ever wanted was to be treated fairly by folks. But it hasn't happened.''
Rusty, the beagle, was put to death one day after he dug his way under a fence at Ronald's country home in Lignam, not far from Culpeper, leaving his dog collar snagged on the bottom wire.
``The dog was like family,'' Ronald said. ``It used to sleep every night on the bed with my 3-year-old daughter Cassandra.''
Ronald is, like a lot of folks, a dog lover. He said he was well acquainted with the shelter where he went on a rampage because he had adopted dogs from there.
``They'd call me when they couldn't find a home for a dog,'' he said.
One of his adoptions is a Labrador crippled by gunshot. Another is a beagle with three usable legs and one that had been injured in a trap.
``We named the beagle Arithmetic because he has three and carries one,'' Ronald said.
Ronald said Rusty the beagle was let out of the house to do its business at about 8 a.m. on July 3. His daughter found the place where the dog had crawled underneath the fence. She looked for the dog all day. She told her father that Rusty was missing when he got home.
``I went around the neighborhood calling for the dog until midnight,'' he said. The next day he phoned the animal shelter, described his dog and asked if it had been picked up.
The lady told him the dog had been picked up and given a fatal injection.
``I didn't believe it,'' he said.
He and his wife drove in their truck to the shelter to see if the dead dog was actually Rusty.
It was not until his wife saw the dead dog that they realized their pet had been killed, he said. Ronald said he was well aware that state law requires shelters to keep stray animals seven days before putting them to death, unless they are severely injured or have communicable diseases.
``I kept asking the lady why they had killed my dog,'' he recalled. ``She didn't answer she just said the decision was made by someone higher up.''
That's when Ronald really freaked.
``My wife was crying, I was crying and nobody could give me an answer,'' he said. He said he let some dogs loose from their kennels ``before they killed them, too.''
Then he began to bust up the furniture and toss the copy machine out the window. Sometime later Animal Control Officer Chris Pemberton arrived while Ronald was outside the shelter. He was not a happy camper.
Pemberton has been charged with brandishing a firearm and with cursing and being abusive to Ronald by the Culpeper County Sheriff's office.
Pemberton's case has not been tried.
Ronald said he tried for a month to learn why his dog was killed without success. He said he was finally told the dog had mange. Ronald said the dog was being treated for a skin allergy (which caused a loss of hair) by a Dr. Chip Byrd at Blue Ridge Animal Hospital. But the dog did not have mange or any other communicable diseases, he said.
Since the incident in the shelter, Culpeper County has changed its animal control law to require that shelter workers consult a veterinarian before killing apparently sick or injured animals.
``A vet never saw my dog,'' Ronald noted.
Ronald is a native of Culpeper County with no criminal record. But that hasn't prevented officials there from going after him like. . . well, junkyard dogs.
A magistrate convicted him of assaulting an animal control officer although no evidence has been presented that he either threatened the woman at the shelter or touched her. He was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $500 on that charge. A county judge later suspended his jail sentence on condition of a year's good behavior.
He's appealing that conviction through his Orange County attorney, Charles Bowman. Bowman says Ronald still faces trial on a felony vandalism charge for the destruction of property in the shelter.
``Their claim of $3,300 in damages is exaggerated,'' he said.
Bowman noted that Ronald, who owns a store in Culpeper, ``is very well thought of in his community. . . it's a pleasure to represent him.''
Well, it's easy for us dog lovers to put ourselves in Ronald's shoes and wonder if we might not have done the same under similar circumstances.
But just remember that as much as we may sympathize with Ron, his conduct in the shelter was not faultless. He should have kicked off the knob after breaking down that door. ILLUSTRATION: Snapshot courtesy of Ronald Lee
[Rusty...] by CNB