Rescue group pleads with pet owners to keep them indoors amid frigid temps

FOX 2 - Less than 24 hours ago, the dog now named "Hope" was curled up, cold, and alone.  Hope is one of two dogs - the Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue brought in from the cold since temps plummeted.  

"We watched their whole demeanor change," said Theresa Sumpter, executive director. "A lot of people say, 'Oh my dog is used to being outside,' and things like that. And then those are the same dogs we end up finding later deceased because they have frozen to death."

Sumpter is issuing a plea to bring your dogs inside, even if they have a dog house. This especially goes for pit bulls or similar – whose fur is no match for the weather. 

"Dogs can still die even with straw especially with frigid temperatures or if they have low body fat," she said. "Those animals will succumb to the frigid temperatures." 

Overnight she says they went to recover the body of a dog, died in Southwest Detroit.  

"Unfortunately he was so frozen to the ground we could not get, we could not lift him from the sidewalk so we had to go and get shovels to get his body freed from the sidewalk, so that’s how cold it is outside," she said.  

"Uno" was rescued from the cold Monday – he and Hope were checked out, and will be okay, and adopted out.  

Uno is the first dog to be treated at the new APAWS facility, a veterinary clinic that Sumpter and the Detroit Pit Crew just opened in Eastpointe at 2100 Kelly Road.  

Soon – it will be open to the public, as a low-cost veterinary hospital. 

"Now when Detroit Pit Crew picks up dogs in Detroit we have a veterinary hospital to bring them to," she said.

Bottom line – keep your pets inside. And if you see one on the streets in this weather, call your local police, animal control and of course, The Detroit Pit Crew.