Athena is a Dogue De Bordeaux, also known as a French Mastiff in France, that managed to survive a decade of abuse culminating by being buried alive earlier this month by the person who should have been her biggest advocate, her owner. Luckily, an animal lover walking his own dog passed through the empty lot where Athena was buried and noticed something sticking out of the dirt. That is when he realized it was a dog’s head, that she was still alive, and he took action to rescue her!

Athena, named after the Greek Goddess Of War, was found buried alive on August 4. All that was exposed was the top of her head, which she had freed herself most likely because she was buried pretty shallow in a vacant lot.

She wasn’t able to fully free herself because she was anchored into the ground by her leash which was tied to a heavy bag of rocks.

She was weak and dehydrated, but relatively calm as she was freed from her would-be grave.

Her rescuer’s dog helped to free Athena too. The black pit bull’s name is Goddess .

Goddess kept encouraging Athena to hang in there while she was freed!

As they worked to free her, they made sure to offer lots of water in order to rehydrate her.

It was a slow process freeing Athena, but they didn’t want to hurt her by using a shovel, so the dirt was scooped away by hand. Here she is nearly free!

Athena was taken to a local veterinary clinic where she was treated for shock and dehydration with IV fluids. The veterinarian discovered that she was at least 10 years old and had obviously suffered a lifetime of abuse.

Athena had a permanent identification which allowed the authorities to contact her owner who lived nearby the vacant lot in Paris where his dog was buried. When questioned, he denied any knowledge of what happened to his dog. He claims that she had run away. However, because of the signs of abuse over a long period of time, in addition to the fact that Athena had osteoarthritis which would prevent her from being able to run away, her 21-year-old owner was arrested Saturday afternoon. He will be tried for cruelty to animals, as well as contempt on a person holding public authority. His trial is scheduled for May of and locals are petitioning for maximum sentencing which would mean 2 years in prison as well as 30 thousand euro fine (approximately $33,000 USD). They are also petitioning to keep him in custody while awaiting trial because they believe that someone who is cruel to animals must have a mental imbalance and if they are willing to do this to animals, what will stop him from hurting a child or the elderly next. I agree that animal abuse is just a stepping stone to hurting people next. But regardless of whether or not they ever graduate to hurting fellow human beings, people need to be punished for animal abuse. Animals are completely reliant to those around them for their entire livelihoods. It is up to us to protect them and ensure it never happens again. If the penalty for abusing and killing animals were more severe, maybe more animals would be saved from a life of abuse.