A dog is recovering at an animal shelter in Lackawanna County after she was found abandoned and severely matted outside a shuttered nursing home in Scranton.
LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. — Shetler workers introduced Newswatch 16 to Chestnut, a year-and-a-half-old dog believed to be a shepherd poodle mix based on the coloring of her coat. Colors that were buried deep under matted fur and dirt were seen in pictures posted to social media last week, when she was brought to Griffin Pond Animal Shelter near Clarks Summit.
“When she was brought to us, um, just the amount of matting and how thick it was, it was pretty shocking,” said Katie Sienkiewich, Griffin Pond Animal Shelter.
Workers with Griffin Pond tell Newswatch 16 that the dog was found along Stafford Avenue in Scranton, outside of a shuttered nursing home. A city animal control officer turned the dog in, not knowing her name, how she got here, or what led to her dire condition.
“It was, it was that bad we couldn’t even tell if she had a tail. She couldn’t walk normally because it was just coated over her feet,” said Sienkiewich.
Katie Sienkiewich, an employee with Griffin Pond, says they removed close to three pounds of matted fur from Chestnut’s coat, removed fleas, and dealt with overgrown nails. “She’s young. She hasn’t had a shot at a comfortable, loving life yet. That, that’s hard, but at least she has that opportunity now.”
Today, she is doing great, but the shelter is still looking to find out more about where she came from and who her possible owners were.
“Animals should have to tolerate living in that kind of condition. We want to help where we’re able to help, um, and if somebody reached out to us, we knew that that was happening, we would try to step in and and help them out the best that we could, whether taking over or providing resources for them,” said Sienkiewich. An effort to try and stop a story like Chestnut’s from repeating itself.
“I mean, she was jumping around, she’s energetic, she couldn’t really move that well before, but now she’s able to kind of let that puppy energy out,” added Sienkiewich.