A group of friends taking a stroll along Barefoot Beach in East End on Saturday afternoon came across a gruesome discovery – the body of a dead dog inside a black canvas bag.
One of the women who found the animal told the Compass she was horrified when they opened the bag and immediately saw a paw.
“We were walking along and we saw this large black canvas bag, about the size of a hockey bag. Our initial thought was it was drugs that had washed up on the beach.
“There were no flies around it, so we didn’t think for a moment that there’d be a body of any form inside it,” she said.
The woman, who has asked not to be named, said a corner of the bag seemed as though it had already been opened, and part of the zipper was unzipped.
“We looked inside and the first thing I saw was the paw. I have three of my own dogs and I foster three others, so I knew with just a glimpse at it, that it was a dog,” she said.
She contacted animal charity One Dog At A Time to ask advice on what she should do and was told to call police and the Department of Agriculture.
She could not get hold of anyone at the DoA, so called Bodden Town Police Station to inform police of what the group had found. “They said they were aware of it, and that they had sent out officers to the area earlier and confirmed it was a dead dog,” she said.
An RCIPS spokesperson told the Compass that officers attended the beach and “found what appeared to be a deceased dog in a bag which had apparently washed up on the beach. There is no indication that the dog or bag originated in Cayman, and there is no ongoing investigation into the matter.”
The spokesperson added that, as the remains presented a potential health hazard, the Department of Environmental Health was notified of the matter and later collected the animal for “proper disposal”.
The Department of Agriculture told the Compass that the Bodden Town Police Station had notified the department’s animal welfare section on Saturday of the reports of the dead animal on the beach.
“The Animal Welfare Officer enquired as to whether there was identification on [the] carcass and was advised no. Further queries revealed that no one could identify the animal,” a spokesperson for the DoA said, adding that as there was no report of animal cruelty or a request to investigate further, the officer advised police to contact the Department of Environmental Health to dispose of the animal.
The DoA also noted that, in the absence of a report indicating potential animal cruelty or a request from police to conduct testing or a necropsy to determine how the dog died, none would be conducted.
The woman who found the bag, said the animal appeared to be fully grown, about the size of a black Labrador, and had a collar but no identifying tags.
She queried whether the bag had washed ashore, saying the dog’s body did not seem to be decomposed, and that she believes it was dumped on the beach very recently.
“I cannot imagine it was someone’s pet,” she said. “I don’t see how you could love an animal and just throw it out in a canvas bag on the beach.”
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