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I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this. The pictures are horrifying. On the other hand, I read a report claiming that this dog is nineteen years old. (Did anybody else see that?) He is dying. He isn't going to be "saved." Even if you believe that the proper question here is the best interests of the dog, rather than property rights (and I tend more toward that side myself, although I didn't give my one dog to the woman who fell in love with her and told her that she had an indoor pool), it is stressful and potentially upsetting to move a dog from what he has known (deficient though it is) and put him among strangers. Lots of owners are deficient. How deficient do you have to be before somebody decides that the dog needs to be "saved?"
I am completely against dogs living on chains. It is legal most places, however. And if dogs live on chains, they are going to die on chains. It isn't going to happen that an owner who has kept a dog on a chain for his entire life is going to bring him inside and let him sleep on the bed when he is old, stinky and incontinent.
Another case that I found troubling was a little dog whom those "Animal Precinct" people on tv took away from his elderly owner because the owner hadn't properly treated his cancer. The owner was very upset about losing his dog, and said he didn't want to take the dog anyplace because he was afraid the dog would be killed. The dog was bright and feisty when he was with his owner before was seized. His "saviors" put him through a horrifically invasive surgery (although the vet hinted that it wasn't going to be curative) and we saw him terrified and in pain in a cage. Maybe they bought him a few months of life, but at what cost?
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