Malnourished Dog, Infested With Fleas and Tied Up in Park, Dies at Shelter

A malnourished dog found tied up in a park and infested with fleas all over her body died after shelter volunteers tried to save her life.

In a Facebook post earlier this month, Hillsboro, Ohio’s Highland Humane Society shared the story of Black Velvet, a young pit bull that was found starving and unable to walk, with clusters of fleas everywhere.

A caption read: “We received a call about this dog left tied in a park in the Lynchburg area that a good Samaritan took in a few days ago. They were feeding and caring for her and contacted us when she stopped eating and stopped getting up.”

The caption went on: “Black Velvet, as we have named her, is literally a skeleton with skin. This poor baby cannot stand for more than a few seconds and she cannot walk more than a few steps without falling down. She is so severely infested with fleas that you can see them plainly crawling all over her eating her alive. When you pet her blood comes off on your hand because of the fleas. We’re assuming she probably has worms too.”

An adult flea can lay hundreds of eggs in a matter of days, according to the Kennel Club’s website. That is why it is important to kill fleas quickly before their life cycle, from an egg to an adult flea, is completed because an infestation can develop.

“The flea life cycle can take as little as 12 to 14 days or as long as 180 days. Under typical household conditions, a complete life cycle usually takes three to six weeks,” the site says.

Richelle Fair, executive director of the Highland Humane Society, told Newsweek that the shelter got the call about Black Velvet on November 1. The person who called brought the dog home and started feeding her, but after a couple of days she stopped eating and was no longer able to get up and walk.

Fair said: “My husband and I went to their address in Leesburg and picked the dog up. We immediately noticed that she was severely emaciated…. She was also severely dehydrated. That evening we made her comfortable, and we offered her food in very small amounts every couple of hours, which she ate well, and she was drinking water. She was scared of us but always sweet.”

She went on: “We found out the next day at the shelter that she only weighed 32 pounds. We also noticed at that time that she was so covered in fleas that they were very visible to the naked eye. They were so crowded on her head. They were just clusters of them everywhere.”

Black Velvet was not able to stand on her own or walk, and she would cry every time she had to go to the bathroom but was unable to get away from her bed. This is when the staff started putting diapers on to help keep her clean.

Fair made a vet appointment for the next day after giving the dog a dish soap bath to help kill the fleas. She said it took 13 minutes of rinsing her with water to stop the blood because of the amount of flea bites she had.

“She seemed much more relaxed with me, as if she finally understood I was trying to help her,” Fair said. “She began to bark and drag herself off of the bed that I provided her whenever I left the room.”

Black Velvet had stopped eating again but was still drinking water, she said.

“When dogs are this starved, you have to put them on what’s called a re-feeding schedule where you have to give them multiple small amounts of food, and sometimes you even have to limit how much water they drink because they are [starved] and dehydrated and they want to eat and drink as much as they can, which can actually exacerbate the situation and make it dangerous for them.

Fair continued: “I took her to the vet, where I had to carry her in, and I held her while we waited for our turn. She had her head on my shoulder, and she just relaxed her whole body against me. The vet called us in, and she raised her head off of my shoulder to look where we were going. By the time I laid her on the vet table, the vet went to listen to her heart. She had already passed away. She was so calm, and there was no struggle at the end.”

Fair said this was not the first time she had seen such a case of starvation and flea infestation with a dog, although Black Velvet was the worst she had seen in years.

“Black Velvet did not get into this condition in just a few days. That amount of weight loss, a severe, flea infestation, took time and could have been prevented. It was obvious that Black Velvet had multiple litters of puppies in her short life,” she said.

Based on her teeth, the dog was thought to be about 2 to 3 years old.