This Chained Dog Got Fed Every Day … Unless It Was Raining

UPDATE: Jazz has been adopted! His cheerful, outgoing personality won the hearts of a couple who attended PETA’s Fall in Love adopt-a-thon on Saturday, and there were nothing but wagging tails when he was introduced to their other dog. Jazz will never again have to live on a chain or wait for the rain to stop before getting fed.

Originally posted on October 21, 2015:

This is what Jazz looked like when PETA fieldworkers first met him four years ago:

Note the overturned white plastic barrel in the background. That was Jazz’s “shelter.” We offered to provide Jazz with a custom-built doghouse and a free neuter surgery and free vaccinations, to which his destitute owners readily agreed.

During the last four years, PETA fieldworkers regularly stopped by to check on Jazz (as they do with many other dogs who are chained or penned alone outdoors 24 hours a day in conditions that are awful but not illegal) and give him fresh straw bedding as well as water, toys, treats, flea and flystrike medication, and more.

When PETA arrived at Jazz’s home recently, the dog’s owners enthusiastically exclaimed that our fieldworkers must have been sent by God. They said that they were worried about him because he’d been losing weight, and when the fieldworkers saw him, they, too, were alarmed at how thin he was. The dog, who had formerly weighed about 70 pounds, now appeared to weigh barely 55 pounds. Jazz’s owner couldn’t understand the weight loss, saying that she fed him once a day “unless it’s raining outside.”

When we informed her that Jazz’s extreme weight loss was likely caused in part by insufficient food, intestinal parasites, and heartworm disease, she recognized that being surrendered to PETA would be in Jazz’s best interests, and she gave him to our fieldworkers.

With heartworm and parasite treatment and regular meals (several times every day, even when it’s raining), Jazz is looking and feeling much better. Says his foster dad: “He leaps off steps like he’s jumping for DockDogs, and he fetches but doesn’t bring the ball back yet. He loves to be held and cuddled and is very curious and gentle—he’s like a big puppy.”

Despite five years in solitary confinement, Jazz is extremely friendly and gregarious (and housetrained!). He gets along well with dogs, cats, and kids—his foster dad says he “would make an awesome family dog.” Care to take him up on that bet? If you live on the East Coast, e-mail [email protected] to find out how you can be a forever friend to Jazz, during fair weather and foul.