A two-year-old dog named Tawny was found lying in a stranger's yard in a Fort Lauderdale neighborhood, so emaciated that her ribs were visible beneath her skin. She is now recovering at an animal hospital in Deerfield Beach, where rescuers say she may have gone without food for weeks, possibly months, before she was discovered.
According to WSVN, iHeart Animal Rescue volunteers received a call last week about Tawny being found in the yard, and they described her as starving with her rib cage visible. Cindy Mucciaccio, the rescue's founder and president, said Tawny was “just one of the skinniest dogs I've seen.” Animal safety advocates have described her case as a disturbing instance of animal abuse.
Tawny is now being nursed back to health at Deer Run Animal Hospital in Deerfield Beach. The rescue says she is expected to regain weight before eventually being put up for adoption, though for now the priority is simply getting her stable and healthy.
Rescue Says It Needs a Medical Foster
iHeart Animal Rescue is asking South Florida residents to help with Tawny's care, both through donations to keep her at the hospital longer and by stepping up as a foster. “We're going to need a medical foster, somebody to make sure that they feed her the same way or whoever fosters can also adopt her possibly,” the rescue said, per the same WSVN report. That foster could ultimately become Tawny's permanent home if things go well.
This isn't the first time the Deerfield Beach hospital and the same rescue group have taken in a dog abandoned under grim circumstances. A dog named Dixie was previously dumped near a busy street in Deerfield Beach before being found by two women, Danielle Olivier and Susan Garcia, the station reported in an earlier story. Mucciaccio said at the time that the rescue had already arranged to take Dixie in the next day before she was dumped instead — “we said we would take it the next day and they dumped it,” she said. Dixie underwent surgery at Deer Run Animal Hospital for a prolapse and was also treated for a urinary tract infection, with a family already lined up to foster her during recovery.
A Growing Caseload for Local Animal Crimes Investigators
Cases like Tawny's and Dixie's are part of a broader pattern local investigators have been tracking. Fort Lauderdale Police Department's animal crimes unit, which started last year in April, has grown to more than 20 officers and had already completed 26 cases with four still active, according to NBC 6 South Florida. The station's report described other cases investigated by the unit, including four French bulldogs that reportedly went without food for five or six days and three pit bulls found emaciated with their ribs visible, shaking from malnourishment. In one case tied to the unit's work, Destiny Bray and Frederick Pinkney were arrested in Fort Lauderdale on charges involving tormenting and confining a dog in a cage without food or water, per the outlet's reporting.
For now, Tawny's immediate future rests on finding that medical foster and on the donations iHeart Animal Rescue says it needs to keep her under veterinary care in Deerfield Beach. If she continues to put on weight as hoped, the rescue says she will eventually be made available for adoption.
