‘All a Hoax’: Person Who Claimed to Rescue Dog With Throat Slit Was Actually Owner, Police Allege

It was a heartbreaking story.

A dog was found on the side of the road in Butler County, Ohio. Her throat had been slashed and she had been muzzled with duct tape. The person who found the dog immediately took her for veterinary care.

News of the injured pup went viral after the Butler County Sheriff’s Office posted an alert on their Facebook page. “This is appalling,” Sheriff Richard K. Jones said. “Words cannot describe the disgust I’m feeling right now, and we will work diligently to find who did this and seek justice.”

But police now say the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by Dani’s owner. In a subsequent statement, Sheriff Jones alleged that the unnamed owners had come up with the ruse in an attempt to cover the dog’s veterinary bills.

“Upon interviewing the owner, it was relayed to our detectives that the canine had cut its throat on a barbed wire fence,” Jones wrote in the statement. “They could not afford the veterinarian bills, so they concocted a story to get the canine help for free.”

“The owner of the canine further advised the detectives that the canine did not have its muzzle taped up,” Jones alleged in the statement. “The snout/mouth area that appeared to be injured was due to the owners keeping the canine muzzled for several hours a day due to it chewing up items in their residence and being aggressive towards their other canine.”

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Detectives followed up with the veterinarian’s office, and confirmed that Dani’s neck injury was not intentional, and that the duct-tape story was made up in order to get free care.

News of the alleged hoax has shocked and angered animal lovers. Workers at HART Rescue in Cincinnati, where Dani was adopted in 2011, expressed their outrage in an interview with Fox19.

“Tears have been shed. We’ve been angry. We’ve been upset. We felt like puking. … It’s just a whole range of emotions,” HART rescuer Katie Goodpaster tells the station. “We are absolutely pushing for [police to press] charges.”

Authorities have not yet disclosed whether the owner will face any criminal or civil charges in the case.

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