Two people were arrested last week in connection with an animal cruelty investigation after a severely injured dog was found along Interstate 35.

Melissa Wood and Jacob Vincent II were arrested on charges related to mistreatment of a non-livestock animal, a third-degree felony, according to Bruceville-Eddy Police Chief Michael Dorsey.

This all started last November, when Dorsey says he responded to a 911 call about a dog lying in a grass median along I-35.

“I started to approach the dog to see if he would come to me and I could tell at that point that he was injured,” Dorsey explained. “That’s when I went up to him and I was able to pick him up and carry him back to my car.”

When scanning the dog, named Lincoln, for a microchip, police found one that traced back to Lucky Lab Rescue, who immediately took him back in.

“We do a very extensive vetting of our adoptees and we were quite shocked to find out that this was one of our puppies from eight years ago,” said rescue volunteer Emily Vandermeer.

Vandermeer says Lincoln had two broken hips, a torn ligament in his front leg and several internal injuries, all consistent with a serious road accident.

“It was over $20,000 for all the medical attention that he needed,” she shared. “We were able to do some fundraisers and be able to do that.”

While Lincoln was at the rescue being nursed back to health, Dorsey was investigating what had happened to him.

“We were able to pretty early on identify who the owner of Lincoln was,” he recalled.

According to the arrest affidavit, police used the owners’ cellphone data to confirm they had been in the area where Lincoln was found the night before.

“For whatever reason they couldn’t care for him any longer and so they left him along I-35,” Dorsey explained.

Wood and Vincent are currently booked into the Collin County Jail. They face anywhere from two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

“The animals aren’t able to speak for themselves and seek justice on their behalf, so someone has to do it for them,” Dorsey said.

Today Lincoln is fully recovered and has found his forever home, now a completely different dog from the one they first met.

“He’s still very active for an 8-year-old dog and very loving and very sweet and sort of just kind of a goofy, happy puppy,” Vandermeer shared.