The dogs had been lying on the ground for days before they were found last Thursday. They numbered 62 or 63, adult mutts whose bodies were strewed around deep woods in part of northern Arkansas where almost no one goes.

One of the few surviving dogs had been shot through the collarbone and jaw. Another survivor appeared to have been a pet.

The dozens who did not survive had been fed hot dogs stuffed with sleeping pills before they were shot with a .22 rifle.

“I can’t go out into town,” Jean Passmore, the treasurer of the local animal shelter in Searcy County, Ark., said in an interview on Thursday. “I run into somebody and they’ll ask, and everybody just loses it.”