Posted on 09/24/2005 11:02:05 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
A chance meeting at an Independence animal shelter has left a relocated Hurricane Katrina victim without his longtime pet.
John Wyrick, who moved to the area from Mississippi following the hurricane, had taken his German Shepherd to the shelter approximately two weeks ago after learning he would not be able to keep it at a temporary residence.
He released his pet of 14 years to a stranger while searching for a place to live. After finding a home, he has learned he can't have his dog back.
Wyrick met with an unidentified woman visiting the shelter, said Amy Wells, shelter manager.
"He wanted the animal shelter to take the dog. They started talking," Wells said. "He decided he wanted to give the dog to her. I told them you cannot do the transfer on our property."
After that point the story becomes unclear. What is known is Independence resident Lynn Nevills eventually ended up with the dog. Wyrick could not be reached Friday.
City of Independence spokesperson Irene Baltrusaitis said the shelter believes Nevills is not the woman who spoke with Wyrick because she differs in body type and description. Nevertheless, at some point Nevills took possession of the dog. After Wyrick found a permanent residence, he approached Nevills about recovering his pet of 14 years.
Nevills reportedly has refused to return the dog. Nevills was at her home Friday afternoon but would not respond to requests for comment. The sound of a dog could be heard outside of her north Independence home.
Residents throughout the area have offered Nevills money or puppies as an incentive to return the dog to Wyrick after seeing the story on television.
Nevills is not a shelter volunteer. She has volunteered with the Independence Police Department's K-9 unit, according to Baltrusaitis.
Nevills and her husband have done grass and landscape work, as well as raised money for the department's K-9 program.
"We don't have volunteers who take care of dogs," Baltrusaitis said." The volunteers take care of other things."
To reach Andre Riley, e-mail andre.riley@examiner.net or call (816) 350-6362.
Agreed.This is pretty crappy.
The original owner should get his dog back.
The mindset of many nowadays is-I got mine-the hell with you.
As you say,this is the message being sent to the kids.Pity.
I think this woman is holding out for more money.
Speaking of kids I feel so sorry for Lynn Nevill's kids. Kids can be so cruel to other kids. I don't think Lynn's actions are going to make her kids very popular with the other kids in that town.
Maybe....... One thing for sure she isn't doing it for the media coverage. She is already not answering her door for the local media.
At this point I consider the dog stolen property Mark. If it wasn't a living being, I would be more inclined to let the courts settle this pre-resolution. When a living being is involved, I say return the dog and let the two week owner seek remedy in court.
What makes this an easy call for me, is that both parties seem to agree that the dog was the 14 year companion of the person who had posession prior to this.
This is traumatic for the dog, and completely unnecessary IMO.
If a person stole your car, the police would not wait for a judgement in court before returning it to you. It would be registered in your name, but both parties seem to have stipulated that the dog was the prior owner's property.
Good point...didn't consider that.
Another unfortunate backlash from the selfish parent.If only parents would stop and realize,for one moment,what the end result of their actions (or inactions) does to their kids.
That is an excellent comparison. That's exactly how they treated their dogs.
There's more to poor Tinys story. I was determined to be her last owner and make sure she was never mistreated again.
The facts don't matter?
Wyrick lost everything in the hurricane.
The temporary shelter wouldn't allow his dog.
He had the dog 14 years.
Wyrick got permanent housing after 2 weeks
Nevill tried claiming that Wyrick wasn't in the hurricane
I have a Yorkie I rescued; my cousin found her in his yard one Sunday and called me up; they were feeding her Vienna sausage, so I rushed right over.
She was horribly matted, full of burrs and sticks; I brought her home and took a pair of scissors to her immediately. She was scared to death -- and when you reached down to pick her up, she ran to the baseboard and put her face in it and crouched down, like she was scared to death.
I made up my mind right then that I was going to do whatever I could to keep her because I knew she was being abused.
$1800 worth of dental work and $400 worth of shots and ID chips later, she's mine and in the last two years, she's settled down and runs this place!
Just another "Flag Lady" type jumping onto a thread that matters nothing to him/her.
Some people live for their love of contention.
Ignore them.
[gee...didn't some really famous guy make a big deal about the "letter of the law" vs. the "spirit of the law" a while back?]...;)
Isn't that the truth; recess could be nasty.
So if you don't like dogs, why are you even posting on this thread?
Just curious.
Actually, we don't; you have no idea what that woman told this man when she went to that shelter.
That is the clue here to her intentions; if she thought she was in the right, what's the need to lie?
Now she's made proved herself hard-hearted AND a liar.
Oh the poor baby! Doesn't it break your heart what people do to their "pets"?
Yes!
I spent all day that Monday calling animal clinics, asking if anybody had reported her missing -- nobody had; I left my name and number with each one.
Finally, she called me on Thursday; said she was out of town and her husband would be by to pick her up that night and put her in the KENNEL while she was gone; I said, just let her stay here until you get back.
In the meantime, I talked to my vet about the abuse; she agreed with me -- and I decided to leave the door open to keeping her if the lady would let me.
She called me on Sunday and said she had been thinking about it and did I want her ......and I jumped at the chance! Within the hour, I had spent $400 on her at the vet's!
That being said, in all my life, I've NEVER had a dog that won't wear a collar or walk on a leash! This one will not; heck, I thought they were born that way!
This poster doesn't usually do that so I was surprised.
Makes you wonder why they had a dog and hope that they had no kids.
That's what I'm wondering too.
She *may* have lead him to believe that she'd be "fostering" the dog until he found a place to live.
That's the point I keep trying to make, regarding the -other- rescue groups who doing that very thing, legitimately and honestly.
We have no way of knowing this man's general intellect or level of experience with legalese.
He may have, in good faith, surrendered the dog to someone he *thought* would return it in the future.
Another poster had a good point, too.
She may be waiting until the "ransom" for the dog's return hits a higher amount.
It's already up to what...$2000 or so plus another purebred "replacement" dog?
People do spectularly evil things all the time.
A poor and elderly man who lived across the ridge from me had nothing left in his life except a herd of much loved and pampered pet goats.
A "city" guy down the pike showed up one day with an "official" notice that the goats were to be surrendered to him upon orders of the SPCA.
The elderly man wept unashamedly as his "kids" were loaded up and hauled away.
The paper looked "real" and his ability to discern the validity of it was very limited, at best.
[he was in his late 80s, had very little education and had been a poor subsistence farmer/hillbilly all his life]
Not long after, it was discovered that the SPCA had issued no such order, nor were they even aware of the man or his goats.
By the time this was discovered, it was too late.
The ersatz "official" had already taken all the goats to the local livestock auction where they were sold for slaughter, netting him a hefty profit.
The elderly man died alone and heartbroken, soon after.
Never overestimate the understanding of the simple common man or underestimate the guile of those who would seek to deceive them.
In this era of computers and printers, "offical documents" can be created on a whim.
With all my heart I pray that you are right.
That's how *I* would look at it but then I'm not like everybody else....:-\
I've known K9 cops.
They're usually fanatical about their 'partners'.
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