A Minneapolis woman is being investigated in a bizarre case of animal cruelty after she tried to send a puppy through the U.S. Mail. The Postal Service said the dog would have died if employees hadn’t discovered it.
Last week 39-year-old Stacey Champion walked into a downtown Minneapolis post office with a package that she wanted to send to a relative in Georgia. She explained to the worker behind the counter that she needed to ship the box quickly and chose a two-day priority mail service.
The Daily Mail said, Ms. Champion was handing over $22.00 for the postage when the package began to move by itself on top of the counter. Then it fell to the floor.
Angela Dodge of the Minneapolis Police Department said, "At that point, the clerk and supervisor could hear a sound like panting coming from inside the box."
"They could hear it in the box, they opened the box and discovered a live puppy in there with no food or water," continued Dodge.
Champion said she was mailing Guess, a four-month-old Schnauzer as a gift to a relative.
Luckily the puppy wasn’t hurt in the fall and was taken into custody by animal control.
A postal inspector said the package that housed Guess had been wrapped so tight that it completely sealed off the air holes. He also explained if the parcel had shipped, it would have been sent by air in an unpressurized and unheated part of a plane.
The ordeal would have been a certain death sentence for the little black dog packed inside.
Champion was charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty. She also faces more serious charges for trying to ship a live animal through the U.S. Mail. She now has 10 days to appeal her case.
