Luggage tags ID suspect in Ohio puppy abandonment

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio man accused of zipping six bulldog-mix puppies into a suitcase and leaving it next to a trash bin might have gotten away with it if he had remembered to remove the luggage tag bearing his contact information, authorities said Wednesday.

A Toledo Area Humane Society officer filed two misdemeanor charges of abandoning animals against Howard Davis, 53, of Toledo, this week, according to court records. Davis was not arrested, and he could not be found for comment Wednesday.

“It’s unfortunate he chose to abandon the dogs,” said John Dinon, the Humane Society’s executive director. “If he had just called us and said he couldn’t care for them, we would have taken them and he wouldn’t have been charged with a crime.”

Passers-by found the suitcase containing the three female and three male puppies outside a business on April 4, authorities said. The pups were about 4 weeks old.

Davis told a Humane Society officer that he had given the dogs to someone in Michigan and had not abandoned them, Dinon said.