By Staff
Staff Reports
This series of stories was written in response to overwhelming interest by animal-rights activists and other concerned residents, mostly from Beaufort County, following a report by Washington Daily News Staff Writer Betty Mitchell Gray.
In an article published Nov. 19, 2009, Gray reported that 131 dogs of various breeds were surrendered to Beaufort County Animal Control officers by an Edward woman.
In the days following the published article, the Daily News fielded a variety of questions about the conditions of the dogs, the identity of the woman who surrendered them and why she wasn’t charged with any counts of animal cruelty and the like.
With these concerns in mind, Gray and Community Editor Greg Katski set out to answer those questions and more.
What they learned was that the dogs had been kept in deplorable conditions and suffered from more serious health conditions than first reported, that legislation banning puppy mills is being pushed by state lawmakers, that it took a monumental rescue effort by volunteers and animal-control officers to find homes for many of the surrendered dogs and that the Edward woman who surrendered the dogs has her story to tell.
The stories of all those developments will appear in the Daily News in a series of articles to be published today, Tuesday and Wednesday.