In Reston, Not a Good Week to Be a Deceased Critter

We've long heard that one of the longest-enduring shortcomings of our beloved earth-toned community is its lack of cemeteries for those of us who want to face eternity under the provisions of binding covenants. If two separate events that took place last week are any indication, the same holds true for the critters who call Reston home.

First up: A Viking funeral burial at sea lake for a dog that went terribly wrong:

Several Fairfax County Fire and Rescue and Police vehicles were called to the shores of Lake Thoreau Friday morning after a man and his stepson fell out of their canoe while trying to give the family pet a "burial at sea."

Police from the Reston District Station said the Reston residents took a canoe out to lay to rest Hank, their recently deceased dog, who loved to swim in Lake Thoreau.

Police said that as the men, whose names were not released, were trying to take care of what they thought would be Hank's last wishes, both people and the dog fell out of the boat.

A neighbor who lives on the lake heard them calling for help and called 911.

By the time emergency responders got to the scene, the people and the dog corpse were safely on shore.

There hasn't been this much excitement on the lake in years! Along with plain old common sense, OF COURSE there's a specific subset of RA regulations that makes such behavior a no-no:

Reston Association spokeswoman Amelia Townsend says under Common Area Rules and Regulation 2 - Lake Use Access - Item 8, Section F, no types of refuse or debris should be put in the lake.

Item 8, Section F strikes again. Curses!

Meanwhile, across town, the Reston Zoo got into a spot of trouble after allegedly euthanizing a wallaby:

Thursday morning, Fairfax County Police executed a search warrant after an employee at the zoo said the zoo director had drowned a sick Wallaby as a means of euthanasia. In The search warrant, the employee told the officer he'd put the Wallaby in a crate, and later observed the empty crate next to a water spigot with a five gallon bucket of water.

The warrant says the employee jumped into a dumpster and found a trash bag containing the deceased wallaby which was profusely wet.

The officer wrote that the director said she euthanized the Wallaby by injection with a drug called Beauthanasia. But, the officer found no blood at the supposed injection site and noted that the dead animal was wet. The director told the officer that they routinely wash and rinse the bodies.

If the director did euthanize the animal with an injection, that's also a problem for the Zoo. The officer who led the search found that the Reston Zoo is not permitted to perform euthanasia because it has not completed the required protocol, training, and certification required.

Here's the Action McNews segment, if you're into such things:



No word on what section of RA regulations this would fall under. But we'd be a bit nervous if we were a dingo with the sniffles right now, the end.