With 5,464 likes already, a new Facebook page is turning collars, err, heads in Tallahassee. It’s titled “Dogs Against Rick Scott” and it’s message is: “Hi, I’m Rusty. In 2012, I reached 40 million people and helped stop dog abuser Mitt Romney. Now I learned Florida Gov. Rick Scott got a dog, used him as a prop to get elected, and gave him away after he won. Grrr.”
The backstory here, as first reported by the Tampa Bay Times‘ Lucy Morgan is that shortly after winning the GOP nomination in 2010, Rick Scott announced to the world through Facebook that his family had rescued a Labrador retriever.
But the last time Reagan made the newspapers was the day before Rick Scott was sworn in as governor in January 2011.
Asked last week what had happened to the dog, Scott’s current and former communications directors refused to answer.
n Monday, the Times asked the governor to clear up the mystery.
“He was a rescue dog,” Scott said, “and he couldn’t be around anybody that was carrying anything, and so he wouldn’t get better.”
Scott said Reagan never bit anyone but “scared the living daylights” out of people at the mansion. He said one kitchen employee threatened to quit and photographer Eric Tournay was frightened when the dog “barked like crazy” every time he saw him with a camera.
So the Scotts gave the dog back to his prior owner, Scott said, about a month after the family moved to Tallahassee.
