Pitbull Who Survived Brutal Machete Attack Reunited With Long Lost Owner
A pit bull who survived a horrific machete attack enjoyed an emotional reunion with his long-lost owner.
When Tommy Boy was first brought to Maui Humane Society animal shelter veterinary clinic in Hawaii, late one evening, around Thanksgiving last year, he was in an unimaginable condition.
“His injuries were the most severe that our veterinary team had ever seen,” Jenny Miller, director of Development and Marketing at Maui Humane Society, told Newsweek. “His 13 wounds were so deep that you could see his bones on his head, back and tail.”
Tommy Boy had to undergo 70 days of surgeries and treatment. Best Friends Animal Society
Tommy Boy had suffered a skull and vertebral fracture, was bleeding from the nose and was in shock and unable to stand. “His head was literally split open down to what looked like brain matter and his eye was bulging out, part of his tail had been chopped off,” Miller said. “It looked like movie special effects because it was so grotesque that my mind couldn’t process what I was seeing.”
The first responders at the scene were similarly “shocked” at what they saw but had still worked tirelessly to stem the bleeding by wrapping Tommy Boy’s wounds in towels. That initial response paved the way for his recovery, but Tommy Boy’s journey had only just begun.
Over the course of the next 70 days, he required 375 staples and stitches along with several surgeries. It was a grueling process but, in truth, Tommy Boy was lucky to even have made it this far.
Tommy Boy suffered 13 separate wounds. Best Friends Animal Society
“A woman attacked Tommy Boy [with a machete] while he was tied up,” Miller said. She believes the attack was related to some “issue” she had with either him or his owner. It could have been even worse though. According to Miller, a bystander “threw herself” on Tommy Boy to stop the attack.
Tommy Boy’s attacker has since pleaded guilty to felony cruelty to animals—a charge that carries a maximum five years in prison. She has been in prison for nearly a year.
Given the brutality of the attack though, there will be some who would argue that kind of sentence doesn’t go far enough. In a 2022 YouGov poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, 46 percent of respondents said they believed that animal cruelty laws in the U.S. are not strict enough.
But out of the horror of the attack and the painful aftermath, something remarkable happened. As news of Tommy Boy’s brutal attack began to be reported on the local news in Oahu, a man watching recognized a face he thought he would never see again.
Tommy Boy looking happier and healed. Best Friends Animal Society
“When they saw his picture they realized that the dog was their Tommy Boy, who had been stolen in 2019,” Miller said. A couple of years back, Tommy Boy’s owner had left him tied up. When he returned, his beloved dog was gone.
“They immediately reached out to us and provided us with his puppy photos to confirm that it indeed was their dog,” Miller said.
So, once the time was right and Tommy Boy was well enough to travel, he was finally reunited with his oldest human friend. Maui Humane Society pulled out all the stops to make it a day to remember.
“Our staff and volunteers gave Tommy Boy a big send off and we flew him to Oahu where his owner reunited with him,” Miller said.
Tommy Boy reunited with his former owner Best Friends Animal Society
Alina Hauptman from Best Friends Animal Society, an animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters by 2025, told Newsweek: “Tommy Boy’s story is inspiring and uplifting, and it’s also a great example of what No-kill shelters do best. No-kill means saving every dog or cat in a shelter who can be saved. Community safety and good quality of life for pets are guiding principles of the no-kill philosophy and are attainable when animal welfare professionals engage in best practices and protocols, like this.”
She added: “Had Tommy Boy ended up in another shelter where he didn’t receive the immediate care he required, he may have been killed simply for ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
