QUILCENE — Tamara Lenzen came home to her Coyle Road farm on Tuesday afternoon to find one of her Chihuahua puppies dead.
The month-old pup was spread out on the floor surrounded by its mother and a dozen of its litter mates.
When Lenzen, 45, picked it up, the dog’s bloodied mouth swung open revealing a horrible sight: A missing tongue, likely cut out with scissors.
“I was in shock,” Lenzen said.
Lenzen told Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies that she had left her home to do some business in town between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Her husband, Jeff, works late shifts at a Chevron station in Quilcene, and he was asleep in another part of the house.
Several rooms separated him from the porch that houses the puppies.
He heard no noise, he said.
After Tamara returned and found the dog’s body, both she and her husband examined the blue long coat Chihuahua for signs of other injuries.
They ruled out the possibility of another animal attacking the dog, since a nose and a lower jaw of the dog remained undamaged.
“I did not see other dogs do it,” Jeff said,
“Not that type of trauma, especially the bottom part of (the tongue) — it’s just too clean of a cut.”
Sheriff’s office called
The couple then called the sheriff’s office to report the case of an animal abuse.
Immediately after filing a sheriff’s report, Tamara Lenzen began phoning animal shelters, veterinarians and animal rights organizations — anyone who she thought might benefit from a warning about the fatal dog mutilation.
“If this does happen to anyone, please notify the police so they can identify the pattern and find a suspect,” Lenzen said.
“Let’s get these demented people off the street.”
With no other explanation and Halloween a few weeks away, she believes that her puppy was attacked by “cult” members.
“All I can say is it’s October,” she said.
“Satanist people come out, dismember body parts for sacrifices and spells.
