When Kelly Benzel in Fond du Lac, WI decided to buy Rocco in late November 2017, shortly before Christmas, what she saw was a cute white pit bull, being advertised on Facebook. Rocco wasn’t on the street, but he hadn’t yet been able to find his furever home. No one seemed to keep him for very long.
Everything seemed fine until she went to pick him up. In the car, she noticed a very strong smell coming from Rocco. Worried, she checked him over, only to find it was from his harness. It had dug into his neck, leaving a nasty wound that was 6 inches long and up to 1.5 inches deep.
Kelly was horrified. She took him to a vet in Appleton, where the harness was gingerly removed. It turned out that Rocco’s former owners had put the harness on him when he was a puppy.
As he grew, it had dug into his skin and caused the infection. The ad on Facebook had shown her a photo of a healthy dog and never mentioned the harness.
When Kelly contacted Rocco’s previous owners, they said they’d left the harness alone because they couldn’t catch him while he was living in their backyard.
They said that the previous owners (who had put it on him) would pick up the vet bills.
Instead, Kelly called the police. Both previous owners received a $1500 signature bond and now could get as much as three and a half years prison time for the charge of mistreatment of animals/causing death.
Having found his forever home, Rocco has recovered physically. Meanwhile, Kelly is helping him recover emotionally.
She hopes to give this gentle puppy a new life different from the bad one he had before.
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Credit: https://dogs.pawpulous.com/2018/01/08/woman-takes-a-big-chance-and-rescues-abused-pit-bull-to-give-her-a-new-life/
