Dog, puppy placed in sandbags, thrown from vehicle

wn.ktvu.com Officers with the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter are seeking help in finding those responsible for throwing sand bags containing a female dog and her puppy Friday into a dumping ground outside Watsonville, killing the puppy. Shelter officers responded at about 5 p.m. Friday to Minto Road in an unincorporated area north of Watsonville about a report of an abandoned dog and a puppy, Officer Todd Stosuy said. The road dead ends at the edge of an agricultural field commonly used for dumping waste, Stosuy said. Officers arrived there to find that the puppy had died and its mother had remained standing next its body and although she was afraid of them, the mother refused to leave her puppy's side, according to Stosuy. After the mother was placed into the animal control vehicle, she started crying and scratching the door and calmed down when officers put her dead puppy beside her, he said. From an investigation and a necropsy on the puppy, a shelter veterinarian determined that someone placed the dogs inside separate sand bags and threw them from a vehicle into the dumping ground, he said. The puppy died of blunt force head trauma from the impact and the mother chewed her way through her bag, freed herself and pulled the puppy out.