Nonprofit Helps Raise Money for Beaten Puppy

A puppy that was beaten by its owner is getting a new lease on life with the help of a local nonprofit and others concerned about pets.

Last week, Scrunchy, a 1-year-old Pomeranian, was beaten by its owner and left for dead in the town of Ludlow. Police were sent to the location of the puppy, found it alive, and took it to the VCA Boston Road Animal Hospital in Springfield.

The owner, Ricardo Costa, was charged with felony cruelty or maiming of an animal, according to WWLP-TV.

A Ludlow resident created a Facebook page that garnered a lot of “likes” and after that, a fundraising page was set up at PetChance.org, and people from 17 different states around the country donated money to pay for the puppy’s expenses. Some of those expenses included thousands of dollars for extensive brain surgeries to fix the puppy’s damaged skull.

In all, more than $10,000 was raised for the puppy.

"This is the fastest this amount of money has been raised in our experience," said PetChance.org CEO Peter Alberti. "When I see all the resources being poured into it like Facebook pages, communities, e-mails and everything its pretty amazing what people can do.”

Scrunchy was renamed Jameson and he is recovering now from the veterinary treatment he has received, according Alberti. Jameson is in a new home too, with an MSPCA-assigned owner. The puppy is sleeping well at night, eating, and walking across the room now.

PetChance.org, according to Alberti, was created in September 2012 to assist with crowdsourcing of funds from people to pets. Alberti created the site after hearing a veterinarian talk on the radio about the difficulty some pet owners have raising money for extensive treatment for their pets.

The company recently moved from Westborough to Alberti’s home office in Northborough until it finds new office space, he said.