Puppy found tortured in Coachella dumpster regains ability to walk
A puppy found burned and tortured in a Coachella dumpster earlier this month has regained the ability to walk.
Hope was just 2 weeks old when a passerby heard Hope’s cries and found her in a shopping bag inside a dumpster in Coachella on May 5. The passerby brought the puppy inside a store across from the dumpster, where an employee and her daughter took her to an animal hospital for live saving treatment.
“I was walking by the trash when I heard the animal crying and I told my daughter maybe someone left the puppy here… I knew it was a puppy and someone had abandoned it,” said the passerby in an exclusive interview with News Channel 3.
According to the Animal Hope & Wellness Foundation, a nonprofit shelter in Sherman Oaks, Hope was burned with a caustic substance, had her tail cut off and had lost the ability to walk due to the trauma she suffered from being beaten and assaulted.
Hope was under 24-hour rehabilitative care since at the McGrath Veterinary Center in Sherman Oaks. Veterinarians were unsure if Hope would ever walk again.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, nearly three weeks after she was found, Hope was once again walking and will be discharged from the hospital soon, according to Alejandra Espinoza Zazueta, the daughter of the employee who helped rescue Hope.
Zazueta wrote in a post on GoFundMe, Hope will still require extensive care and a bandage change every two hours due to the damage her skin sustained from the burns. Hope is heading to a foster home very close to the Sherman Oaks shelter and clinic where she being treated.
Zazueta hopes to bring Hope home in two weeks, however, Hope’s skin needs to heal first to prevent infection.
The person responsible for the torture has not been found at this time, the Animal Hope & Wellness Foundation is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible. If you have information on this incident contact info@animalhopeandwellness.org or call (747) 998-5568.
Zazueta is raising money to help pay for treatments, click here if you would like to help.
Stay with News Channel 3 for any updates.
