Last week we told you about the woman who adopted a dog just a few months ago, starved her, and then dumped her dog in her trash can when she moved. The dog was just skin and bones, weighing 17 pounds instead of the 30 she should’ve weighed. A sanitation worker discovered her as he went to dump the cans in his truck, and seeing a puppy’s head sticking out of a bag in a garbage can horrified him.
“It sort of scared me actually,” he told TribLive.com. “I feel bad when I see nice toys in the trash, but a puppy like that — it’s just horrible.”
The dog was rescued and given care, and as our article ended, the police were after the woman but little progress had been made. Now, that’s changed. The woman’s name is Nicole Baker, and she’s been charged with animal cruelty and disorderly conduct. According to WTAE, Baker admitted to police that she starved the dog, put her in a trash can, and moved to Texas with her boyfriend.
What makes this even more shocking is that people offered to help the dog before she moved.
“By reading through the messages and things of that nature, she had intentionally misled people that were offering to help when it came to taking care of Mia, the dog,” Trooper Stephen Limani told WTAE. “She acknowledged the fact that at some point in time, she realized what she was doing, she fully knew it was wrong, and still she put a dog, her dog, in a garbage can.”
Baker’s daughter, Brittany Prinkey, who lived next door to her mother, is just as shocked and angry as everyone else. When she found out, she couldn’t believe it.
“I was so upset, I felt like I was going to throw up. I was so sick to my stomach about everything. I couldn’t believe it.” Prinkey said. “That garbage can is right over there. I didn’t hear anything. No one heard anything. No one knew. It’s disgusting,”
“I never thought my mom would be able to do something like that. It’s my mom,” she continued to WTAE. “I never thought she would do something like that.”
The dog is currently at the Humane Society of Westmoreland County, where staff have renamed her Fauna. She’s gained eight pounds and received “hundreds” of inquires about adoption; she also went on a shopping spree at a local pet store, thanks to donations. Once she is healthy, the facility hopes to choose the right family and adopt her out.
“I’m super upset with her,” Prinkey told WTAE. “I just don’t understand how someone could do that.”
Via WTAE; phots via the Humane Society of Westmoreland County
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