MIDDLETOWN — PETA is calling on the Middlesex Judicial District state’s attorney to ban a resident from owning any other animals after two dogs die in his care.
On July 18th, Middletown Animal Control officers said they responded to a report of a missing three-year-old Labradoodle named Jennie.
“Further investigation revealed that Jennie was deceased. Jennie’s owner, David Beveridge intended to bring the dog to a doggie daycare around noon before heading to work, instead went straight to work leaving Jennie in the parked car on Lawn Avenue,” said police.
Beveridge is a retired chemistry professor at Wesleyan University. He was arrested Tuesday evening and is set to appear in court on July 24.
Temperatures on Tuesday were in the 90s and humid.
Beveridge told officers that he remembered that he did not bring the dog to the doggie daycare and ran out to the car to check on the dog. When Beveridge went to check on the dog, it was dead.
“During the investigation the animal control officer learned that Beveridge brought the deceased dog to the local veterinarian. The veterinary technician was extremely upset because Jennie was not the first dog that died because Beveridge left it in the car,” according to police.
Police said Beveridge had a dog named Charlie that he left in a car in 2014. The dog was a four-year-old poodle mix.
Now, PETA is asking that Beveridge be banned from “from owning or harboring animals in the future”.
In its letter, PETA , “Beveridge has demonstrated a stark unwillingness or inability to meet the basic duties of animal custodianship and should be prohibited from owning or harboring animals if convicted.”
Below is a copy of the letter:
The Honorable Peter A. McShane
State’s Attorney, Middlesex Judicial DistrictDear Mr. McShane,
Greetings from PETA. This letter concerns a case that your office is handling involving David Beveridge of Middletown, who is reportedly facing charges stemming from the July 18 death of his dog, Jennie. According to news sources, Beveridge informed investigating authorities that he’d intended to drop Jennie off at doggy daycare earlier in the day but had forgotten to do so and remembered only hours later that she was still in his car, which he’d driven to work and parked. The temperatures that day reportedly climbed into the 90s, and Jennie apparently succumbed to heatstroke—an agonizing ordeal involving intense panic, heavy panting, lethargy, loss of coordination, vomiting, internal hemorrhaging, and brain damage. Alarmingly, police reportedly discovered that Beveridge had allowed another dog, Charlie, to die in the same manner several years prior.
If these allegations are accurate—particularly with regard to an earlier such occurrence—Beveridge has demonstrated a stark unwillingness or inability to meet the basic duties of animal custodianship and should be prohibited from owning or harboring animals if convicted (a common provision in such cases). Please know that we stand ready to secure experts to testify if needed.
On behalf of our tens of thousands of members in Connecticut, we thank you for your time and consideration as well as for the difficult work that you do.
