Shelter Raises Reward in Animal Shelter Vandalism Case

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Macon Police are still searching for the people responsible for breaking into the All About Animals shelter.

The animal shelter was broken into sometime between late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, last week.

A volunteer worker arrived at the Riverside Drive facility in Macon and saw the dogs fighting and called other volunteers for help.

Carolyn Yager has volunteered at the animal shelter for more than a year. She describes how she felt when she found out what happened.  “I was heartbroken,” said Yager. “I was in shock. Tears flowed immediately. I knew these dogs, I walked these dogs, loved on these dogs and these dogs have loved me back.”

Volunteers at the shelter say the dogs are recovering from the incident. Some of the dogs were happy and playful.

Volunteers were at the shelter Tuesday, walking, feeding and cleaning the dogs.

Vikki Baxley says she has one goal as a volunteer at All About Animals.  “To help the animals know that they are loved, and that somebody cares, and not everybody is bad,” says Baxley.

Volunteers say the outpouring of support from the community has been overwhelming, and they are grateful that the people of Macon care.

“I know that they are warm,” says Yager. “I know that they are loving and it’s a shame that it took this to bring it out in them, but we are so very grateful, it’s overwhelming.”

The shelter along with Crimestoppers is offering an $8,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people responsible for the animal shelter break-in.

All About Animals’ Executive Director, Mary Crawford met with detectives, Tuesday, as volunteers prepared kennels for dogs returning to the shelter.

“Today we’re actually going to bring some of our injured dogs back,” says Yager. “Things are getting back to normal here.”

Vance Shepherd says he came to the shelter just to help out and give love.

“With All About Animals doing all the good they do, you hear something about somebody breaking in last week, and it was just devastating,” says Shepherd. “It really was, it’s just something you don’t like to think about, or you don’t ever want to happen, and all these poor animals they’ve had a hard enough life as it is, and now they’re going through something like this. It almost makes you loose a little bit of faith in humanity.”

Since the break in, the shelter has beefed up security. Someone is at the facility at all times, and they’re working on installing an alarm system.

If you can help by fostering an animal or donating to the recovery efforts, visit All About Animals on Facebook.