When you have to be away from your pets, it’s important to put them in the care of the right person. While most people will be happy to help and do everything they can to care for them, others can be neglectful and cause lasting harm.
One shocking story shows just how disastrous it can be to put your trust in the wrong person, after one soldier came home to find his dogs in terrible condition.
Jayden Dufford, from Rock Springs, Wyoming, left home for ten weeks to attend Army Basic Training, and left his two dogs, Maxy and Angel, with his girlfriend Lauryn Burge.
Things went south between the two during those weeks, and when Jayden returned home he was ready to get his belongings and break up with Lauryn. Things were apparently so ugly he brought his family and a police escort along to the home for support.
Jayden’s belongings were already packed up, and he was ready to leave amicably. However, things took a shocking turn when he asked where his dogs were.
“My brother asks her, ‘Where are the dogs?’ and she says, ‘In the bathroom,'” his sister Brooklynne Dufford recalled to FOX 13. “And I’m like, ‘What? Why are they in the bathroom?'”
Brooklynne looked in the bathroom, and let out a heartbreaking cry: “I think one of them is dead!”
Angel and Maxy were lying on the bathroom floor, both severely underweight and malnourished. It was immediately clear Laurn had been neglecting the dogs and not feeding them.
“They came out with two animals that definitely hadn’t been fed for a long time,” Officer Tracy Frisbee told Oil City News. “I mean, they looked bad.”
The family rushed to get Maxy to the car… but Jayden broke down, believing Angel was dead. The dog was skin and bone, and unmoving. However, he soon realized that Angel still had some signs of life.
It wasn’t for long: the family took Angel to the vet the next morning, and she died on the ride over. Jayden says she had internal bleeding from starvation.
But it still allowed him one final night with his friend, and a chance to say goodbye: “I carried my best friend out to the car to give her the love and the care for the night that she lived,” he said.
Lauryn was charged with cruelty to animals, and plead guilty. She later received the maximum sentence of six months of jail time, and was ordered to pay $444.45 in restitution for the surviving dog’s health care.
While that’s good news, it barely began to cover Maxy’s expenses, which Jayden says cost him $4,000.
To cover the costs the family put up a GoFundMe page, which has received $1,300. Maxy is slowly recovering, gaining weight back, and “no longer fits in a cat collar.”
“Maxy will survive and will be healthy in time!” the page says.
We’re glad Maxy is doing better and justice was served, but this is a heartbreaking story… and a reminder to be careful who you trust your dogs with. Share this story!
