Talkin Pets

Neglected dog in shocking condition

Stef DiPietrantonio
FOX 13 News

RIVERVIEW - Hillsborough County Animal Services is taking care of a severely neglected dog discovered Tuesday in a Riverview yard with no food or water.

Officers found the dog after receiving an anonymous call and immediately removed it from the home. They are now working to track down the people who live there.

The dog is a 6 to 8-month old female hound. Her caretakers have nicknamed her "Ne Ne." She is extremely malnourished, her eyes are swollen shut, and her skin is red and inflamed all over.

She is, however, doing remarkably well after only 24 hours of care.

Right now, authorities are looking for the owner or owners of the Riverview home where Ne Ne was found. They were taking care of their house but not their pet.

There is barely any hair left on Ne Ne's frail body.

"We're calling her 'Ne Ne,' after the animal control officer that brought her in, Renee," said Dr. Lisa Centonze, who is treating the dog.

There is barely any hair left on Ne Ne's frail body.

"Her feet are swollen, her ears are infected, her skin is infected, she's definitely suffering," Centonze said.

The dog's skin is such a mess they can't tell exactly what breed she is.

"C'mon out, you want to come out?," Centonze said, trying to coax Ne Ne out of her cage. "You want to come out? C'mon NeNe girl!"

It took some coaxing with dog food to get her to leave the safety of her cage.

"Good girl! Oh yeah!," she said, as Ne Ne stuck her head in a bowl and started eating enthusiastically. She has a ravenous appetite.

"With emaciated and malnourished dogs, you don't want to feed them too much too quickly," Centonze explained. "So we've been feeding her small, frequent meals and so far, she's kept everything down."

"Good girl!," she said as Ne Ne chomped-down a half a bowl of dog food.

Centonze said they got an anonymous tip and rescued Ne Ne from her Riverview home.

"It's horrible," she said. "It's absolutely inexcusable that this can happen to a dog, when it's so easy to prevent."

Ne Ne is tough to look at.

"Her body condition is emaciated," said Centonze. "You can see all of her ribs, the points of her hip, her vertebrae."

Ne Ne suffers from an extreme mange, which is an infection of the hair follicles.

"It's not contagious to other dogs, it's not contagious to people," she said. "It's very treatable and that's the really sad thing, about her condition is that, this could have been prevented if it had been treated early on."

In the meantime, Ne Ne is very itchy.

"The mites cause the itchiness, which causes her to scratch," she said. "She obviously was not fed enough for a long period of time, I would say weeks to months."

"Was this dog left to die?," we asked.

"I believe so," Centonze said.

She added that Ne Ne is timid, but very friendly.

"She's shown absolutely no aggression. But you can see that she shivers a little bit -- part of that is probably from fear, part of that is probably because she has no body fat."

"You're a good girl," she said to the shivering dog. "We're gonna get you better, we're gonna get you better."

No arrests have been made yet, but Ne Ne's owners are facing felony animal cruelty charges.

Animal control officers urge people who end up unable to care for a pet to bring them to the shelter before things get out of hand.

As soon as Ne Ne is well enough, they hope to find a loving home for her.

After seeing Ne Ne, many of our thoughts go straight to another big animal abuse case, which fortunately has a very happy ending. When we first met Casper, he looked a lot like Ne Ne, nothing but skin and bones. The boxer was found three years ago in Carrollwood, chained up and starving.

Today, he's with a new adoptive family and is thriving, and the man accused of abusing Casper was given an unprecedented sentence last month : 15 months behind bars.