A group of highway workers in Sadieville, Kentucky saved a 7-week-old puppy this December after they spotted her drowning in a partially frozen creek they were working alongside. This wasn’t your typical drowning case, however, where an animal accidentally falls in and isn’t strong enough to fight the current.
In this situation, someone had actually intentionally thrown the puppy into the freezing water, fully intending on killing her.
When they pulled “Chapel” out of the creek, what they found was shocking.
The poor pup had been put inside a trash bag full of rocks and tossed into the creek to die.
In her desperate struggle to survive, she miraculously managed to wriggle her head free and poke it out of the top of the bag. One of the men saw Chapel’s head bobbing out there and waded into the icy creek to pull her out.
By the time they got her back to the bank, she was shivering, wet, and suffering from hypothermia.
They immediately took her to the Scott County Animal Shelter in Georgetown, Kentucky.
In an interview with ABC News, the shelters assistant director, Sherry Bishop commented on the story:
“She couldn’t even hold her head up and was very disoriented. We rushed her to the vet, where she received fluids to warm up her little body,” Bishop said.
They quickly found out that not only was the poor dog freezing, she was also deaf and severely vision impaired.
It turns out that she had been tossed in the creek by a dog breeder who didn’t want to deal with the fact that she was born with birth defects.
Chapel is a purebred Australian Shepherd and is also what’s known as a “double merle”. Both the puppy’s father and mother had merle coats. Double merles are highly desired for their amazing all-white fur, but unfortunately breeding them comes with a lot of risk.
Merle-to-merle breeding greatly increases the probability that a puppy will be born blind or deaf. Chapel was afflicted with both.
“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.”
While we like to think that all people who go into the dog breeding business do so mainly because they love animals, there are definitely some bad apples out there. Some people do terrible things in the pursuit of profit, and those working in the dog breeding industry are no exception.
The animal shelter is now working with local police to try and catch the person responsible for the heinous act.
“Whomever did this could have called us and we would have gladly picked her up, or they could’ve dropped her off at the shelter,” said Bishop.
The fact that the unscrupulous breeder simply dumped Chapel in the creek to die clearly shows that they have no moral principles and don’t deserve to be in business anymore.
Luckily, Chapel has been able to make a full recovery.
It’s important to remember that just because she doesn’t have good hearing or vision doesn’t mean that she can’t still live a great life.
“She makes up for being blind and deaf with her sense of smell. It’s amazing to watch,” Bishop said. “She would follow us around by our scent or would hang onto our pant leg with her mouth.”
Chapel has since been placed in a foster care for animals with special needs while they search for her a new, loving home.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
