On a cold January night, a man living in Earlton, New York, opened his front door and found an unexpected visitor.
It was a skinny, hairless dog who was shivering in the freezing air. The man had no idea where she’d come from.
“It appeared that she had been dumped by the roadside and abandoned,” a person for the SPCA said. “It was a frigid night, and it was assumed she came to the door looking for food and warmth.”
The man brought the dog inside and called the police. After that, took her to the shelter. When the staff set eyes on the dog, now named Penny, it broke their hearts.
“She was in bad shape,” Ron Perez, told The Dodo. “She had some open lacerations on her face and neck, and was pretty much devoid of any hair. It was sad. It’s always sad to see them like this.”
It turned out that Penny had a severe skin condition called demodex mange, which is caused by mites burrowing into a dog’s skin. If left untreated, demodex mange can be deadly.
While Penny had managed to stay alive, the mange had taken a heavy toll on her health. Unfortunately, she’d lost most of her fur, leaving her with dry, flaky skin that had become infected and scabby.
“When she scratched it, she would scratch her flesh too. Unfortunately got infected and created more bleeding,” Perez said.
Luckily with medical treatment and lots of loving care, Penny got better. Within one week, she looked like a different dog. The vet was pretty impressed with her recovery.
As more weeks ticked by, Penny recovered even more. After Penny has been recovering, SPCA has been working with local police to find the person who’d abandoned Penny. Only for 24 hours, Penny’s former owner was identified and got arrested. If convicted, the former owner could face a $1,000 fine and jail time.
“We got a lot of applications to adopt her,” Perez said. “But these two individuals are fantastic pet owners. They took it slowly and came and visited with her a couple times a week.”