VIDEO: After Seven Lonely Years in a Backyard Prison, Senior Dog Is Loved at Last

For Immediate Release:
September 9, 2020

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Seven years is a long time—and for dogs like Mingo, it’s nearly a lifetime. Kept far away from her owner’s house in a small, waste-filled chain-link outdoor pen 24/7, she spent every day and every night, year after lonesome year, with nothing to do, no companionship, no toys, no opportunity for exercise, and often even no water to drink. Authorities refused to intervene, so for seven years, PETA’s fieldworkers visited Mingo as much as they could, giving her water, food, and affection—and as a new PETA video shows, their persistence paid off: Mingo’s owner finally agreed to let them take her away.

Mingo’s freedom almost came too late. She suffers from advanced heartworm disease and suspected early-stage liver cancer—but the PETA fieldworker who secured her freedom took her home, where she’ll live out the time she has left, and is making sure that these are the best months (or, hopefully, years) of her life. Mingo now spends her days romping on soft grass, wrestling with her new dog brother, rolling around on the carpet, sniffing new scents, collecting blankets to wrap herself in, walking new paths, and snuggling indoors on the couch with her adoptive family.

“Mingo is savoring every second of her new life and now receiving the kindness and respect that she was long denied as a lonely ‘outside dog,’” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “There are countless other dogs like Mingo still out there, and PETA encourages caring people to help them by pushing for laws that prohibit keeping dogs caged or chained outdoors alone and forgotten.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. More information about the group’s work to help dogs and cats is available here, and more photos of Mingo are available on PETA’s blog.