Rebecca Coleman, the shelter vet at the Memphis pound on whose watch numerous dogs have starved to death, including a puppy who was forced to eat his own littermate to survive, and who scrubbed a degloved cat’s wounds without providing pain medication and left him to suffer in a cage for 5 days has again been implicated in an animal cruelty incident at the pound. This time the victim was a mixed breed puppy who was impounded with a collar embedded in her neck:
According to city records, for days MAS Medical Director Rebecca Coleman did nothing, leaving the dog in its cage with an embedded collar.
[…]
According to shelter records, Coleman was the only veterinarian on duty the week the dog arrived. Four days after the dog arrived, it finally received medical attention for what was described as a “severe collar injury.” It was ingrown into the neck with a foul odor. It was so bad that not all of it could be removed; the clasp was left inside the dog because tissue had grown in.
Two days after treatment the dog was euthanized to ease its suffering.
That’s one way of putting it. Killed to hide the evidence of Rebecca Coleman’s negligence also comes to mind.
The cruelty occurred last fall but no charges have been filed. Someone did write a note in Rebecca Coleman’s personnel file about the incident.
In related news, there are fresh victims awaiting Dr. Coleman since the city seized two allegedly starving dogs with embedded collars from a Memphis firefighter this week:
According to neighbors and the police, the dogs had chains dug into their necks so deep the dogs were cut and bleeding. Police found bowls filled with dirt and out of reach from where the dogs were chained.
[…]
The dogs were taken to the Memphis Animal Shelter, where both are listed at a substantial risk of death.
You don’t say?
Fire. Them. All.
(Thank you Karen and Clarice for the links.)