Indy the Pit Bull -- Hurt by a Sadistic Act Involving Fireworks -- Finds a Happy Ending

A vet tech who helped him recover from injuries sustained on July 4 offers him a new home.

Happy endings sometimes seem in short supply, especially in cases of animal abuse, so this one is very welcome. After months of treatment and recovery, a Pit Bull who made the news last year after someone strapped fireworks to his body and lit them, has found a new forever home.

Indy (short for Independence) was part of a particularly sadistic kind of Fourth of July  celebration last year. He was discovered in an alley in Van Nuys, California, on July 5, 2013, with more than half his body covered with third-degree burns. To this day, no one knows where Indy came from, or who tied fireworks to his body and legs. It's possible that we never will.

But we do know that this week, he went to a new home, adopted by one of the veterinary technicians who looked after him at the Westlake Village Animal Hospital. Jenny Mandel, who officially adopted Indy, wasn't working at the hospital when he first came in, but for months she has made a habit of coming to see him every morning when she came in. In November, she decided to adopt him.

"You can't not love a dog like that, so every day it was just more love, more love, and then finally he became a momma's boy. I became a doggy's girl," she told NBC.

It has been a very long and painful journey for Indy to get to his new home. NBC reports that his treatment involved "at least four skin grafts and surgeries."

The volunteers and staff who have cared for Indy during that time understand that journey better than anyone. Just after his recovery was announced in November, volunteer Allison Polumbus said, "It's really hard to see an animal in this kind of pain. We saw him without the bandages. It's horrific, it's gory, and you can't even imagine the pain he's in."

The scars from Indy's trauma are going to last for a long time, but everyone says that he has remained loving and affectionate the whole time. At his new home, at least he'll be assured of getting some of that love back.

I have to admit to a certain sentimental attachment to this story. I grew up in Westlake Village, where Indy has been recovering. It's an affluent suburb about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. I went to two high schools in the area and hated almost every minute I lived there. I was glad when I finally escaped to go to college in the 1990s, because I knew from an early age that I wouldn't get any happy endings there. I'm glad that I got out when I did, but I'm also glad that Indy, at least, found his happy ending in Westlake.

Via Life With Dogs and NBC

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A shelter dog’s story: Before the happy ending

Are you getting sick of hearing me talk about my Gracie yet?

Today, the great folks at Second Chance Animal Adoption in Bonners Ferry sent me some more information on Gracie’s life before we adopted her on Christmas Day. And while I worry and care about all pets in sub-standard shelters and pounds, knowing that my own dog suffered in a particularly terrible one is hard to think about.

But I think it’s important, so this is Gracie’s story.

She was found by a sheriff’s deputy near a trailer park when she was a puppy. She came into the city pound during a time when it was being investigated for neglect of the animals, while volunteers from SCAA were working hard to help the pets in the old pound and get a new shelter built.

The old pound was a small concrete building with seven kennels, and inside/outside “runs” that were only 3 feet by 4 feet in size. The building was old, with inadequate ventilation and no drainage. It was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

Eventually someone new was hired to care for the animals, and SCAA volunteers were able to make many improvements over the years, but it was still known locally as a “hell hole.”

All that finally changed when SCAA opened a brand new shelter for our community’s animals last July, and brought all the animals, including Gracie, over there. This is how Kate Turner from SCAA described that day:

When Gracie moved to the shelter (she rode on the float in the parade from the pound to the shelter) and crawled into her Kuranda bed, I cried. It was the first time in her life she didn’t have to lay on filthy concrete ( in her own waste). She laid on that soft bed constantly unless Kim or Dawn was walking her or putting her in an outside pen for fresh air.

I look at my beloved Gracie now, and see her lounging on her special orthopedic beds and wrestling with best friend Shakira, our Golden Retriever, and like Kate, I find myself crying.

Friends, I’ll be honest with you: This dog is such a special gift to me. I love all my pets, but with her it’s, like the coach used to say on Mad TV, “a whole ‘nother level!”

My gratitude to the people who do the hard work for the animals in our community, and all over the country, is endless. And I’ve never been so glad of anything in my life as to know that Teresa and I helped get the new shelter built through our donations and sponsorships, and continue to sponsor adoption and other programs there, too. Talk about a warm feeling!

If you have a pound like this in your area, lend a hand, or donate some money, to the animals there. They need you.

Excuse me, I have to go see if Gracie needs anything!

Photo: One of the runs at the old city pound, before Second Chance Animal Adoption volunteers were allowed to step in, and a new animal care employee hired. There are much worse photos, but I thought this one was bad enough.

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