BATON ROUGE - A normal walk through his apartment complex turned terrifying when a man noticed the body of a dead dog in a nearby lake.

Donald Morrison said he was walking his dog at the Lakeside Villas apartments off Millerville Road when he made the gruesome discovery.

"I kind of look over, and it's a dog in a garbage bag not even tied up. Just head laid out, and it's kind of on the shore, and I'm thinking 'oh my God, someone just threw away their dog."

Morrison said he immediately called the police, who told him to call animal control. He says he also left a message with the apartment complex.

Days later, animal control came to the lake to investigate and see if they could locate a microchip.

"There's no way we can trace the owner," Director of East Baton Rouge animal control Hilton Cole explained. "There was no rabies tag on its neck. It was petrified to the point where we really couldn't do much with it. And at that point, the investigation kind of grounded to a hault."

Morrison says another neighbor told him they noticed the dog a week before he did.

"He said at some point it was taken out of the water and then he never saw it again," Morrison explained.

Late Thursday, apartment complex management emailed a statement to WBRZ and followed up with a phone call. In the statement, they say they were notified of the dog's body in the lake, and they contacted animal control.
 
They were told because the dog was dead, animal control was not able to assist with its removal. The property management said they hired another company to remove the deceased animal with respect.

"It hurts your heart," Morrison said. "It's not respectful. It's sad to see any dead animal on any day of the week, but to see that someone just threw it in the water and said 'screw it, I'm through with it.'"

The CEO of the apartment complex company apologized in their statement for it taking so long to remove the dog from the lake.