Animal control looking for owner of dead horse

East Baton Rouge Parish Animal Control and Rescue Center officials are still looking for the owner of a horse found dead Friday at a house on Yazoo Street, the center’s director said Wednesday.

Police on Friday notified center officials about the horse at 2153 Yazoo St., Animal Control Director Hilton Cole said.

Center officials found the horse’s carcass and put a notice on the homeowner’s door Friday but never got a response, Cole said.

When officials returned Tuesday, Cole said, they discovered that someone tried to burn the horse and bury it.

“He (the owner of the horse) is playing pretty hard to find,” Cole said.

Cole said the center officials are not sure at this time if they will arrest the owner of the horse because they are still investigating the cause of the horse’s death.

Cole said he personally has not visited the house but has seen pictures of the horse, which appears to be in the backyard in some kind of shed.

Cole said center officials left the horse’s carcass at the home. “That’s the responsibility of the owner” to take care of dead animals, he said.

City-Parish Department of Public Works employees went to the house Tuesday afternoon to cover the horse with lime to eliminate some of the odor, Interim DPW Director David Guillory said.

Cole said his office has received complaints in the past of livestock cruelty, but never a dead horse complaint.

City ordinances say that livestock, which includes horses, can be kept at a home so long as they are not “permitted to reach any road or highway or cause any danger or obstruction.”

According the parish Assessor’s Office website, the owner of the home at 2153 Yazoo St. is Melvin Lewis Jr.

Attempts to reach Lewis for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.