It’s always heartbreaking when people thoughtlessly abandon their animals. If you really can’t take care of your pet, the ethical thing to do is find them a new home or surrender them to a good animal shelter.
But some people toss away their pets in shockingly cruel ways, leaving them for dead. But luckily, one poor pup was spared a cruel death after she was rescued and given a second chance.
In December 2018, two highway workers in Kentucky made a heartbreaking discovery: someone had thrown a seven-week-old puppy into a creek, tied up in a plastic garbage bag filled with rocks.
The puppy was deaf and blind. It’s clear that the dog’s owner intended to drown her, but the pup managed to keep her head above the freezing water.
One of the workers braved the icy cold to rescue the puppy, and the two men brought her to Scott County Animal Shelter in Georgetown, Kentucky.
The shelter workers were shocked and raced to save the life of this “wet, freezing little puppy.”
“She couldn’t even hold her head up and was very disoriented,” the shelter’s assistant director Sherry Bishop told ABC News. “We rushed her to the vet, where she received fluids to warm up her little body.”
They named the puppy Chapel, and realized she was likely abandoned by a heartless dog breeder. Chapel is a purebred Australian Shepherd, and was likely bred from two mere-coat dogs, which can produce a valuable all-white coat on a dog but also increases the chance of birth defects like blindness and deafness.
“It’s a breeder being greedy,” Bishop said. “The breeder can’t make money from the ones with congenital birth defects, like in Chapel’s case, so we feel like she was tossed away like trash.”
But after that harrowing near-death experience, Chapel quickly recovered and revealed to be a happy, energetic puppy. Despite not being able to see or hear, she made up for it with an incredible sense of smell.
After getting plenty of love from the shelter, she was taken in by a foster family, and got to run around and socialize with other puppies.
“It has been so, incredibly fun sharing this chapter of Chapel’s life with everyone over the past month!” Chapel’s foster mother wrote on Facebook.
“She has gone from a tiny, scared puppy to a rambunctious, sassy and independent girl!”
Finally, Chapel got adopted into a perfect forever home. A month after he was discovered in that freezing water, he was completing puppy training:
This poor pup had a heartbreaking start, but it looks like everything is going to be great for her for now on!
Thanks to all the people who worked hard to give her a second chance—the men who found her, the shelter workers, her foster family and her new owners!
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