Dog dies on frigid balcony: boyfriend blamed
By Sharon Hill, The Windsor Star March 9, 2012
WINDSOR, Ont. -- June Tao came home from China to find her Yorkshire terrier in a cage with its own feces and no sign of her beloved Maltese or the boyfriend who had been caring for her dogs.
After frantic calls, she says her boyfriend came over and told her their relationship was over and her dog was dead.
He told her he left the dog outside on the apartment balcony and later found it dead, the 24-year-old Tao said Wednesday.
“I think my heart is broken. I cried. My dog is like a daughter for me,” she said of her three-year-old white-haired Maltese named Milk.
Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is investigating, said agent Amy Nardella.
Nardella alleges the dog — a tiny Maltese — froze to death on the balcony.
Tao said she went to China in November and left her two dogs with her boyfriend, a University of Windsor student. She returned Feb. 29.
Nardella said the dogs were let outside on the balcony to relieve themselves. At one point the Yorkie, named Coffee, came back in the apartment but the Maltese wouldn’t and the boyfriend allegedly shut the balcony door, Nardella said.
She said that when the boyfriend came back hours later, the small white dog wouldn’t come back inside.
He is alleged to have left the Maltese outside with food and water for a couple days and then found it dead.
A necropsy showed the dog was not sick before it died, Nardella said. The dog weighed about three pounds which would be low for the toy breed which the owner said had weighed about eight pounds.
“That’s a very painful way to die, just cowering in the corner on the cold cement freezing to death,” Nardella said.
She said she asked the man why he didn’t go out and get the Maltese inside. “He couldn’t because his flip-flops were chewed up and the whole balcony was full of feces. So that’s why he didn’t go out to grab the dog. But he went out to get it after it had been dead,” Nardella said.
The balcony still had piles of feces earlier this week.
An investigation could lead to charges under the Criminal Code of causing and permitting distress to an animal that carry a maximum fine of $60,000, three years in jail and a lifetime ban on owning an animal if convicted.
If that’s not warranted by the evidence, charges could be laid under a City of Windsor bylaw for inhumanely treating an animal that could mean a fine, said Nardella.
Even though the man is not the owner, the dogs were under his care, she said.
Nardella said any dog left outside as an outdoor pet has to have an insulated doghouse and access to water and food.
The man is no longer co-operating with the OSPCA investigation, Nardella said.
Tao said her former boyfriend is Guo Yu. When reached by cellphone Wednesday afternoon, Yu, 22, confirmed who he was and referred questions to his lawyer Xuemei Jiang who couldn’t be reached.
Tao came home in the early hours of Feb. 29 and said she saw a mess of feces and urine in the apartment and her Yorkie named Coffee in a locked cage with no water. After hearing from her boyfriend that her other dog was dead she phoned her friend Eileen Yang who said Tao was shocked and saddened. “I’ve never seen a girl cry that badly,” Yang said.
Tao reported the dog’s death to the humane society on the morning of Feb. 29 when it opened. She wouldn’t learn until later that Milk was buried in the park across the street from her west end apartment.
With help in translating from her friend Yang, Tao said she had been with her now former boyfriend for about a year and if she knew he wasn’t taking care of her dogs she could have asked friends in Windsor to care for her pets.
She doesn’t know how long the dogs were left alone in the apartment or how long Milk was on the balcony. She said she keeps asking herself why she went back to China.
“I trust my boyfriend too much. He broke my heart.”
Milk was Tao’s first dog. She has pictures of the dog’s birthday celebration and her pets dressed up as Superheroes. Milk’s pink checked bed and her favourite toy, a stuffed carrot, still sit in the apartment living room.
Coffee, the two-year-old male Yorkshire terrier, will eagerly fetch the toy. She said he’s a few pounds underweight but since he’s been groomed he looks fine.
Tao said she misses the two dogs playing together. When she was sad it was Milk who made her happy.
“I cannot lose her,” Tao said, referring in her grief to Milk who is already gone.
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