A dead Indiana woman's will demands her dog be euthanized and buried with her, the New York Daily News has learned.
Connie Lay, who passed away last month, has requested her 9-year-old German shepherd Bela either be sent to an animal shelter by a trusted friend, or "be put to sleep and cremated and the ashes be put with the owner's ashes," Lay's attorney, Doug Demure, told the Daily News.
The entrusted friend has no desire to take in the dog and Bela was scheduled to be put down on Tuesday, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. But the dog is still alive and Denmure said he is trying to reach out to the Utah-based Best Friends Animal Shelter, which Lay specifically mentions in her will, to see if the shelter will take Bela.
Denmure also said Bela is an aggressive dog not many people liked, which he plans on letting the shelter know about. Ley once told him the dog needed to be muzzled around strangers, he told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The will says Bela shall live out his days at the shelter if the friend chooses that route. But it is unclear if once at the shelter the dog can later be adopted, the Daily News reported. All of the shelter's animals are put up for adoption "if at all possible," Eric Rayvid, the shelter's senior public relations manager, told the newspaper.
But as of Wednesday the no-kill shelter said while they are aware of the situation, they have yet to be contacted by Denmure or Lay's unnamed friend.
For now, Bela is being held at the PAWS animal shelter in Indiana's Dearborn County until a final decision is made. The shelter issued a statement saying they will not euthanize Bela should it come to that.
"It will be the responsibility of the estate to make those arrangements elsewhere," PAWS said according to the Daily News.
Lay, who was in her 50s, died from unknown causes at her Aurora home on Nov. 25, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. While her request to have her dog put down may seem cruel, many dog owners like Ley worry what will happen to their beloved pets once they are gone, says Harold Dates, president of SPCA Cincinnati.
"She must have reached the conclusion that nobody else could care for her dog, and that the dog would not want to be with anybody else," Dates told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "We see that with people. But you know what, it's not true."
