Dog emaciated from lack of care now healthy and ready for adoption

February 25, 2009 - 6:57PM
A story of survival-- a dog who survived against some long odds.

The dog would be dead unless some kind people made the right call.

"Cocoa" was found on the day before Valentine's Day, starving to death.

You can almost see her heart. You can count her ribs and vertebrae. She measured only a few inches across looking more like an old greyhound than a young pit-bull-mix.

Cocoa was chained to a truck in a yard in Belle Glade with now- empty food and water bowls out of reach.

"We received a complaint from the family that the dog had finally gotten too weak to walk," said Capt. David Walesky.

Cocoa was owned by Eric Jones. His girlfriend and her mother called Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control.

"Our officers help her back into the truck, brought her back here and gave her a lot of food and a lot of water and she's gained 14 pounds in 12 days," said Walesky.

Today Cocoa still has some skin problems from lying on open ground so long. but she's happy and playful-- and ready to recover in a foster home before being adopted.

"It's amazing that something so simple as giving the dog proper food and proper water can quickly get her back to the shape she needs to be in."

"We would ask that anybody out there in the public that sees situations like this immediately contact us and not wait until the animal can't walk," said Walesky.

Eric Jones is free on bond on various animal cruelty charges. He has given up Cocoa and a judge could decide Friday to ban Jones from ever owning an animal again.