Garbage Truck Driver Rescues Scared, Injured Puppy Left in Roadside Backpack

The boxer mix, named Tipper, will now live the rest of her life with the man who rescued her. By Austin Cannon January 28, 2021 Advertisement Pin FB More Tweet Email Send Text Message Print
dog that was rescued from a dumpster Credit: Courtesy of Rumpke Waste & Recycling

A garbage truck driver who saved a terrified, injured puppy abandoned on the side of the road Wednesday now plans to adopt the cute boxer mix. 

(No, I'm not crying. It's allergies. You're the one crying.)

Aaron Kinsel, a driver for Cincinnati's Rumpke Waste & Recycling, was driving along his route in Ohio's Colerain Township when he saw a jettisoned backpack on the side of the road, a company news release said. The backpack was moving, and he opened it to find a "distraught" puppy.

The poor girl was likely freezing in 20-degree temperatures, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

"She looked up and saw me and saw that I was trying to help and she kind of had this look of relief," Kinsel told the newspaper. 

The 10-week-old puppy, who Kinsel named Tipper after the garbage truck mechanism that picks up trash bins, was seriously injured and dehydrated. The Inquirer reported that Tipper was dehydrated and one of her back legs was fractured at both the hip and the knee. It will need to be amputated, but otherwise the puppy is expected to make a full recovery. (A team from Rumpke quickly took her to a veterinarian for help.)

Rumpke will pay for all of Tipper's treatment. Once that's through, she'll go home to her new, much-happier life with Kinsel and his family.     

"I felt like I was meant to find her," Kinsel said in the release.