Shipping Label on 'Taped Closed' Box of Abandoned Puppies Left at Bus Stop Leads Police to Suspect
The Springfield Police Department in Oregon said someone abandoned the dogs with no "food, water, or attempt to keep the puppies warm"
Springfield Police Dept./Facebook
The six puppies found abandoned in a box in Springfield, Oregon on Dec. 5An Oregon man faces six charges of animal abandonment — one for each dog — after allegedly leaving a box of puppies near a bus stop.
The man, 72-year-old Jeffery Lynn Dugger, allegedly abandoned the pups in a “large” box near a bus stop in Springfield, Oregon, according to an incident report shared by the Springfield Police Department on Facebook.
A community member discovered the box, which contained six puppies only “several weeks old,” on the morning of Dec. 5 and called Springfield Animal Control, police said. Rescuers transported the little dogs to Greenhill Humane Society, where staff members got a closer look at the unsafe conditions of the box.
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The box “had been taped completely closed,” police said. So, the six pups had no ventilation and no “food, water, or attempt to keep the puppies warm.”
Temperatures hit a low of 30 degrees on Dec. 5, according to data from weather.com.
Further inspection of the box revealed a shipping label with Dugger’s name and Springfield address.
Investigators also learned that the 72-year-old made a call to the humane society about a day before the abandoned pups were found, during which he threatened “to dispose of them” if the organization did not take the puppies “immediately.”
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Kelly Fleischmann, Greenhill Humane Society's community engagement manager, confirmed this to local TV station KEZI.
"Our kennel manager was contacted and immediately went into action following that," she said. "It was within immediate moments of that initial phone call."
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Dugger has since been contacted by animal control officials and charged with six counts of animal abandonment - cruelty, police said.
The puppies, meanwhile, are doing well, according to Fleischmann.
"Our kennel manager worked closely with getting everything they needed on her end and getting those animals into our intake," she told KEZI. "We're delighted to be able to say those puppies are thriving."
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