When Staffie-mix Caitlyn was discovered with her muzzle bound with electrical tape, it sparked outrage all over America. She was rescued by the Charleston Animal Society (CAS) and was found to have devastating injuries to her muzzle that would cause lifelong scarring.

A photo of poor, muzzle-bound Caitlyn, who is from John’s Island, South Carolina, was shared in local news reports, and people’s thoughts immediately turned to what kind of punishment her owner was going to receive for this.

As people from all over donated towards Caitlyn’s jaw reconstruction surgery, a man named Ted Corvey was in charge of prosecuting the terrible case of animal cruelty.

Caitlyn’s story had had a profound effect on him, and he was determined to get justice for her.

“I really formed a good connection with her, so that got me really emotionally invested in the case. From there, we just started preparing it for trial,” Ted told ABC News.

To everyone’s relief, in August of that year, Caitlyn’s abuser pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges. He was sentenced to five years for animal abuse, and he is currently serving 15 years in federal prison on unrelated gun and drug charges.

“When he wound up indicating he wanted to plead guilty I was thrilled, because I was pretty nervous about heading into trial the next week,” Ted recalled.

But that wasn’t the end of Caitlyn’s story. Since he had first been introduced to the pup, Caitlyn had left pawprints on Ted’s heart, and when the trial was done, he realized that he didn’t want to say goodbye to her.

In October 2017, Ted and his family made the easy decision to adopt Caitlyn for themselves.

“She’s super sweet and very playful and, like I said, my wife and I are just very lucky to have her,” Ted said. “After night one it was an obvious fit, and we knew she was never gonna go.”

Ted already owns a puggle-mix, Lucy, and a Dachshund-mix, Sully. Caitlyn (who is a mix between a Border Collie, Boxer, Staffordshire Terrier, and German Shepard) soon made friends with her new siblings. Ted can now reflect on the impact that Caitlyn’s trial had on people from all over the country, something which has left her as somewhat of a celebrity.

“The most amazing thing from my involvement was the amount of calls that flooded our office and letters, even months and years after the case had been going on,” Ted said. “People recognize her pretty often. It will start with, ‘ooh I wonder if that’s Caitlyn,’ and then they come over and ask.”

Ted hopes that Caitlyn’s resilience and strength to carry on after her horrific abuse can be a source of inspiration for people all over the world.

“Not just animal abuse victims, but humans too, who went through a hard time but were able to persevere,” he said.

You can watch a video of Caitlyn’s inspirational story below, along with some special moments from her Dog’s Best Day, which was awarded to her by BARK.

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Article Sources:

ABC News

BARK

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By Emma Shallcross

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Emma Shallcross is a contributor at SBLY Media.