UPDATE: Sabattus police rule out gunshot as cause of dog’s death

SABATTUS — Police are investigating the apparent shooting of a 12-year-old dog whose body was found 50 yards from his Bowdoinham Road home.

On Tuesday, Danial Sabine posted a Facebook report about the grisly death of his dog, a toothless Yorkie named Wilson. The post has since gone viral on social media.

“We usually don’t post personal things that happen to our family,” Sabine wrote in the Facebook post, “but we want you to know that on Saturday our little Yorkie, Wilson, went missing around 2 in the afternoon. We searched for him on our land, asked our neighbors and put up signs. We found him the next day at 4:30, 50 yards from our home.

“He had died,” Sabine wrote. “Wilson didn’t just die of natural causes, someone shot him three times. He was 12 years old, weighed 5 lbs. and he didn’t even have any teeth left. Not exactly a threat to anyone.”

Sabattus police were investigating the incident.

The story was spreading Wednesday on Facebook and Twitter — on Facebook alone, the story had been shared nearly 600 times by Wednesday night. The death of Wilson spooked and angered other pet owners who live in the area. Some said they would take extra care to watch over their outdoor pets.

“It totally breaks my heart to think someone would come onto my property and hurt any of my animals,” said Robin Graziano, who lives in nearby Bowdoinham. “They are a part of my life, my family. And my heart breaks when I hear of this tragedy.”

According to Sabine, the shooting of Wilson did not appear accidental.

“It was deliberate,” he wrote. “They either shot him right there or shot him and he tried to make it home.”

Sabine and his family live on a stretch of Bowdoinham Road between The Settlement and Williams Road. Danial Sabine, in his Facebook post, appealed to the public for help.

“If anyone has heard someone talking or saw something strange, please contact the Sabattus Police or me,” Sabine wrote. “Please keep your pets close by; we don’t want any of you to go through this. This is not just terrible that it happened to our special dog but it makes us extremely uneasy that someone was in our woods.

“Please share,” Sabine wrote, “and maybe we can find this person.”