Dog owner taken to see Ollie’s remains finds someone else’s dog in grave

Grieving pet owner deceived again by dishonest dog trainer

JONESBORO, Ark. – Rachel Tyrer was escorted to the supposed grave of her missing dog Ollie late Thursday. When the body was dug up, she soon realized she had been deceived again by Hunter Nelson.

NEA Report is just learning of this on Monday, as Tyrer had hoped to find the owner’s of the deceased dog.

“We’ve tried to keep it quiet so we could find the owners and tell them but we haven’t found the owners,” Tyrer said.

Instead, she’s only found more questions.

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After reaching out last week through text message to Nelson, Tyrer received a response saying she could be taken to the grave of her dog.

Through a mutual friend wishing to not be identified, Tyrer was escorted on Thursday, Jan. 10 to the home of Hunter Nelson in Greene County, Arkansas. As usual, the slippery Nelson no-showed the meeting but Tyrer, with a police escort, was still taken to the supposed burial site of her dog, Ollie.

The grave was marked with a pink or red paint, a small cross, and what appeared to possibly be recently disturbed dirt. After digging several shovel fulls of dirt away, the dog was found buried approximately six inches deep.

“We thought it might be Ollie so we had a microchip scan – and there was no microchip,” Tyrer said. “The [veterinarian staff] said he had only been dead for a few weeks.”

Ollie has a microchip. He also has his “dew claws,” or fifth claw up his arm. The deceased dog did not have these. The deceased dog also did not appear to have been dead for four months, Tyrer said.

But the most glaring difference was that the buried dog was not fixed. Ollie was.

“Normally, they don’t fix the dogs for breeding purposes,” Tyrer said. “It probably didn’t come from animal control because they’ll fix them for free. So, I think this is probably somebody’s dog that he was training. But we haven’t found anybody thus far that we know.”

Tragically, it appeared the dog died from starvation, Tyrer said, after taking it to be examined by a veterinary expert.

Once again, Hunter Nelson couldn’t come. He claimed he was at the bank. The person who came to meet Tyrer said he was getting money to pay all the people back who had their dogs returned to him. Nelson previously said in a text message he was forced to return all dogs to their owners because of the negative backlash he’s received. However, as Tyrer has learned, Nelson’s constant excuses are to be taken with a grain of salt.

“I was really hoping Hunter was there just to talk to him but he wasn’t,” Tyrer said.

In the photos, some of which are graphic, a blue substance is seen at the base of the grave, under the recovered dog. Whatever the blue substance was, it wasn’t on the dog. Tyrer wasn’t certain what the substance was but speculated that it could have been another marker for a grave dug earlier.

“At first I saw it and thought it was body fluids but that didn’t look right,” Tyrer said. “We thought maybe there was a dog under him that was further down.”

Tyrer said no other dogs were on the property when she visited but that could be because Nelson was forced to return them all. She said several kennels were in a shed but she did sneak a picture of a number of barrels laid down in a row and nailed to a board. The area these barrels were in was not fenced in (they are up against a fence but it is not enclosed).

“What was weird about his property: there was no fence around his property to where he could have his dogs run around,” Tyrer said. “There was only a back fence. Unless they were kept in a shed, they had a small dog run.”

The area where the dog was buried was behind Nelson’s house, Tyrer said. She was told by a relative of Nelson that he owned another property but the relative wouldn’t reveal where the property was. Tyrer said the relative has since stopped responding to her efforts to contact her but asked us to not mention them in this story.

With her dog, Ollie, still missing, Tyrer still believes he could be alive. She’s continuing her search for answers as she now also searches for the owners of another dog that met its tragic end.

“I think he knows it’s not my dog and doesn’t know what to say,” Tyrer said.

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To assist in the identification of the dog, we are linking users to several photos of the decomposing dog. This is graphic content.

Photo One | Photo Two | Photo Three | Photo Four