Found a viral rescue video that was totally staged by the guy who "found" the dog

So I saw this video floating around on Facebook where a guy pulls a dog out of a drainage ditch and everyone in the comments is calling him a hero. It had millions of views and the audio was all shaky dramatic music. I got curious because the dog looked way too clean for being stuck in muddy water. I ran a reverse image search on a frame and found the same dog in an older Instagram post from that guy's account. Turns out he dumped the dog there himself just to film the rescue. He even had a GoFundMe link in the bio asking for donations to help save more animals. I called him out in the comments and got buried by people calling me a hater. But the video got taken down a week later after some news site picked up the story. Anyone else notice how many of those feel good rescue clips fall apart when you actually look into them?

2 comments

2 Comments

adamgreen16d ago

Man that is just sickening. The fact that people will go that far to fake something for clicks and donations is exactly why it's so hard to trust anything online anymore. It makes real animal rescues look suspect and honestly does way more harm than good in the long run. You were right to call him out even if the mob turned on you, that took guts. Probably felt like screaming into a void until that news article hit. Good for you for not backing down though, that's how people like that get exposed.

gavin_hill2715d ago

Is it just me or does it feel like every time someone tries to do something good online now, you gotta question if it's even real? That's gotta be exhausting, man. @adamgreen I really respect that you kept pushing back even when everyone was piling on, that's not easy to do when you're getting mobbed. It's rough that one bad actor can throw shade on all the legit rescue efforts out there, but I'm glad the truth finally came out for you.