GREELEY — The sounds of squeaks are ringing through the Denkai Animal Sanctuary.
A squeaking toy dog, after all, is what an 11-month-old injured and abandoned boxer named Gingerbread got for Christmas. Well, that and a new home.
The prospect of getting either one seemed bleak on Christmas, when a family found her ready to play in a Greeley business park with a rubber band around her tail in a botched attempt to dock her tail. Banding is a commonly used method of tail docking, said Floss Blackburn, founder of Denkai, but it is generally practiced on puppies who are 48 to 72 hours old, at the hands of breeders. The tail typically falls off within three days.
In this case, the painful tail brought a yelp from Ginger when Denkai workers touched it, and a vet had to remove it Tuesday. Her new owners, a Denver couple who just lost their senior boxer, paid the $200 bill.
“It’s kind of cool that they are stepping up,” Blackburn said.
The Greeley Tribune
