MORGANTON, NC (WBTV) - Tonight a dog is recovering after being tortured with a BB gun in Morganton.
Someone shot the small dog, Brownie, nearly a hundred times then left him in a ditch incapacitated. The person responsible has not been identified.
But Brownie’s story did not end in the ditch.
Brownie was saved from that ditch by a good Samaritan and just returned from the vet where he had surgery for the BBs that were shot into his eyes and throughout his body on Tuesday.
Now he is starting to recover, but the Morganton community where this happened wants to know who did this.
“He was always a happy dog coming to meet me at the door," said Edith Pritchard.
Pritchard is Brownie’s mom. Brownie is a Jack Russell mix that was born at Pritchard’s house 7 years ago.
Pritchard lives in a tight-knit community, so Brownie usually runs around outside then runs back home. But one day Brownie didn’t come back.
“Someway or another he wandered away from the neighborhood,” said Pritchard.
But then about a quarter of a mile away, some good Samaritan’s found Brownie in a ditch. He couldn’t move.
Christie Fries and her mom, Janet Lott, helped save Brownie from the ditch and reconnected him with Pritchard through a Facebook post.
Lott found Brownie while driving by on the road and put him in her car. Fries posted photos of Brownie to find his owner.
She was able to find Pritchard after family members recognized the photos of Brownie. But instead of relief that Pritchard’s dog was found, that’s when the real bad news started.
“He said, ‘Edith I don’t think he can see.’ I said well what happened to her eyes?” said Pritchard.
The vet told the family that Brownie was shot in his eyes.
“This dog was tied down and shot at close range with a BB gun,” said Lott. “Over a hundred times.”
Pritchard said this has been traumatizing to witness for the puppy she has known since birth.
“I couldn’t believe that anybody could put that many small bullets in a dog,” said Pritchard.
Pritchard says when she used to call Brownie’s name he would wag his body in excitement and run over. Now he doesn’t respond. So in addition to being blinded, Pritchard also thinks Brownie is now deaf.
“To me this was torture to a defenseless beautiful animal that hurt no one,” said Lott.
No one is in custody for doing this to Brownie. The Burke County Sheriff’s Office say Animal Control is investigating.
Fries says they need to step up the investigation to find the person who did this.
“You need to be in jail and rot there,” said Fries. “To hold a dog down and shoot it in its eyes... that’s uncalled for.”
Pritchard says this act is unbelievable and she’s frightened to have a person like that living undetected in their community.
“I want to know why they are so evil that they could do an animal like this,” said Pritchard.
If you have any information about who may have done this, call the Burke County Sheriff’s Office. If you’d like more information on how to support the family and Brownie, you can visit their GoFundMe page.
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