When animal activist Rob Acuña and some friends saw a photo on Facebook of a stray dog with a severely swollen head, they knew they had to find it and help it. For over a year, the dog had wandered around the area near an apartment complex in southeast Houston and had suffered unimaginable cruelty.
His body was thin and frail-looking, but his head was swollen to an abnormal size. The dog was nervous, and with good reason: it was clear the people he had met were anything but friendly. His rescuers managed to block the entrance to the room and put him in a cage. They named him Gus and took him to the Houston K-911 Rescue Center, where he could receive care.
A small miracle: Gus’s blood tests came back clear, and he miraculously tested negative for heartworms. But there was more bad news than good. The vets discovered that the shoelace was so tight it had dug into his skin and must have been there for over a year. They also found 25 pellets all over his body, from someone who had shot him with a pellet gun.