The city of Winnfield, LA is home to Uncle Earl’s Hog Dog Trials – an annual event where dogs are turned loose in an enclosure with wild hogs whose tusks have been removed. The length of time it takes the dog to pin down and/or maim the hog determines the winner. Winnfield proudly advertises the blood sport on its website, describing the event as the “Super Bowl” of hog dog rodeos.
Although Winnfield’s city website does not mention an animal control officer, it apparently has one. Or had – as the last one is currently in jail, charged with animal cruelty. Former Winnfield ACO Eva Wise allegedly stopped paying rent in October 2013. At that time, her landlord, who was preparing to evict her, received a phone call from the Heart of Louisiana Humane Society requesting permission to access the property for a cruelty investigation.
Wise had allegedly left 9 dogs on the property she abandoned, chained without food or water along with 8 dogs and a litter of puppies on another property one mile away. Two of the dogs were already dead and the rest were reportedly in such bad shape, all but two were euthanized on site.
The landlord, Jennifer Johnson, says she asked Wise why the dogs had been left to starve to death:
“She just said that she couldn’t hardly afford to feed herself, much less the animals and she had said that she had told some of her husband’s family they needed to come get the dogs because she had apparently up and left and this had been for several weeks,” said Johnson.
Although the dogs were discovered in October 2013, Wise was not arrested until February 28, 2014. Law enforcement declined to explain the reason for the lengthy delay. She has since pleaded not guilty to seven counts of aggravated cruelty to animals. Her court date has been set for July 28. One of the two surviving dogs has an adoption application pending and the other is available for adoption.
City of Winnfield, this is your wake-up call. Stop being proud of hurting dogs and start attracting a different element in your animal control department. Every dog has the right to live, to love and to be loved. Advertise that.
(Thank you Clarice for sending me this story.)
Her behavior is worthy of arrest and jail but why bring up the other unrelated issue?
It’s a dog abusing city (see title). They advertise dog abusing events (see paragraph one with link). They hire someone to protect pets who, it turns out, starved her own dogs to death (see middle of post). The city needs to reconsider its attitude toward dogs as sentient beings who are not ours to abuse (see last paragraph).
I say good old girl Eva gets chained outside and left to as cruel a fate as she dealt those helpless animals!! You suck Eva!!
I find the lack of comments on the news articles interesting. Apparently no one in Winnfield cares about the dogs or that she was most likely paid using their tax dollars.
I’m sure there are some good people hiding out there but from the “entertainment” it sounds like a lowish circle of Dante’s inferno.
I can’t say I’m surprised that a group that finds maiming animals for fun a great good time has a cruel ac officer, it kind of stands to reason.
Anouther lowlife POS community!! Bet they have a ton of pedophiles too- they usually flock to these low life ignorant places. You know as they say in the south.”every family has one”!!!
First off I am a citzen of this town and unfortunately had the horrible task of knowing this woman! I myself support animal rights and do not agree with the hog dog trials nor do I or my family financially support anything regarding this sport! I am appalled at what this woman had done she had everyone fooled including the staff at our animal hospital along with the humane society! That being said I don’t take kindly though to another human that is no better than me to compare the citzens of my town to this woman or this hog dog sport! We are not ignorant nor are we a town full of pedophiles! If you ask me the only people or towns that sound and look ignorant are the ones with the immature and utterlery stupid comments! Shows your obvious lack of intelligence by basing your thoughts on a community as a whole by one bad apple in the bunch and a sport that us citizens had no control over being brought here! Oh FYI this sport is not in winnfield city limits the town itself so we aren’t in control of this activity! To be exact it is actually just in our parish not the city itself so us being citizens of the city of winn cannot control what the parish of winn does!