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Puppy found in dumpster near Ybor City
Kylie Jones reports
YBOR CITY, Fla. - A puppy was rescued after it was thrown out with the trash near Ybor City last week. Mercy Full Project said the puppy was found in a dumpster off East Fourth Avenue last Thursday morning.
Heydi Acuna, the founder and director of Mercy Full Project, said Good Samaritans found her and surveillance video from a nearby business captured the moment she was thrown in the dumpster on camera. She said they named the puppy, which is about four to five months old, "Treasure."
"Somebody’s trash is other people's treasure, and that's why we named her treasure," Acuna said.
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She said the puppy was brought to Mercy Full Project starving and dehydrated after security cameras from Cladding Systems captured the moment Treasure was thrown into the dumpster.
"Pure anger," Acuna said. "Why would somebody do that?"
Security footage showed two people walking on East 4th Avenue one night last week. The video shows one person walking towards the dumpster as the puppy follows, then that person picks her up, throws her in the dumpster and runs away.
"It's just insane to even think what was going through that person's mind, to just put this animal in a dumpster, not thinking that it could just die like that, like trash," Acuna said.
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Staff with Cladding Systems said two employees found Treasure in the dumpster about 12 hours after she was dumped. Acuna said this is not an uncommon incident, unfortunately.
"Right before Milton, we were already overwhelmed with the amount of people just giving up their animals and just contacting us to surrender the animals," she said.
She said they’ve also seen a lot of animals being dumped, like Treasure was. Acuna said animal dumping, abandonment and surrenders have gotten even worse after Hurricane Milton. She hopes stories like this encourage people to think twice.
"These animals don't deserve any harm or neglect," Acuna said.
Mercy Full Project says Treasure is safe and healthy now, but she isn’t ready for adoption yet. Acuna said they’ve reported this incident to animal control.
You can get more information about fostering and adopting with Mercy Full Project here.
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