A Dowelltown man pled guilty to a horrible crime last week in General Sessions Court. The man was found to have intentionally starved and neglected a chained dog, even going as far as leaving on vacation for a week without feeding or giving the dog any water.

Richard Smith Wade, 34, of Frosty Point, Dowelltown, pled to the offense and received a sentence of 11 months 29 days, all suspended to CPS supervised probation. He must also pay a $10 fine and court costs.

The complaint read, “On or about July 27, 2023 the DeKalb Animal Shelter responded with deputies from the Sheriff’s Department to a dog being neglected. Upon making contact with the animal at 171 Frosty Point, Dowelltown, they found a dog that was severely emaciated, no food, and yellow discharge coming from the dog’s eyes. The dog was very unstable when she tried to walk. The owner could not be contacted at that time. The dog was removed from the property.”

Emmaly Bennett, Shelter Director and Animal Control Officer, said, “I was contacted by a deputy stating that he had gotten a welfare call at 171 Frosty Point for a dog and he responded to the call. He then immediately let me know that the dog he found there that night was in poor condition and he sent me some photos.”

“I followed up the following morning and some deputies went with me, but the owner was not there. We checked on the dog and found it was a pretty bad situation, and we left a note before leaving. Later in the day after receiving no response from the owner, I asked an officer to go out with me again to this property and again we could not make contact with the owner. I then asked the officer if we could remove the dog from the property because the animal could not walk very well and was very unstable. There was no food or water present and I know the dog needed medical attention right away. The officer reached out to someone who gave approval for me to take the dog from the property. I took the dog to a veterinarian to get a professional evaluation and then placed her at the shelter,” Bennett explained.

“The following day I heard from the owner who said he had been on vacation for a week but had left the dog unattended. I informed him that he would face charges because of the neglect. I asked him if he had reached out for help with the dog. He said he had not done so,” Bennett continued.

“The man said he was a single dad with children and explained that the dog had been given to him several months prior by his brother and that his children liked the dog. I asked him why the dog had not been fed. He said he fed her when he thought about it, maybe three times a week. He claims he would throw out scraps or chicken bones and that the kids would throw out scraps here and there, but he wasn’t feeding the dog regularly. He said the dog didn’t really like him,” said Bennett.

Bennett said that the dog was in horrible condition and had not been fed regularly for a long period of time, perhaps months. Through the actions of the Animal Shelter the dog is much better thanks to antibiotics and the feeding schedule she is now on.

“She is making a huge turnaround. She weighs 37 pounds today. She weighed 20 pounds upon intake. She is playing with toys and getting stronger every day. We want her to put on a little more weight and gain more strength. Probably in about two more weeks we will take her back to the vet and get a good checkup done on her and then schedule her surgery so she can be spayed, get her up on vaccines, the whole works so we can prepare her for adoption,” said Bennett.

“I want to express my thanks to all the law enforcement officers who went out there with me to the Wade property and especially to the deputy who called me after hours to let me know of this dog’s condition otherwise we would have never known about it. They were very helpful through all of this especially with advice on how I needed to go about pressing charges,” added Bennett.