Justice For Snowflake: Did Ted Cruz Really Leave His Dog Behind In His Icy Cold Home?

Texas Senator Ted Cruz would do well to start believing in climate change now that his state has frozen over. But that's unlikely, considering that, instead of staying to help lead Texans through the weather disaster that has left millions without power, water, and heat, Cruz instead left to go on a vacation with his family in Cancún, Mexico. In the aftermath of the disastrous scandal, during which the lawmaker attempted to blame his daughters for wanting to "escape," the Cruz family also apparently left their rescue dog, Snowflake, behind in their very probably ice-cold house.

Since cutting his vacation short and coming back to Texas on Thursday, Cruz has explained that he was only chaperoning his daughters on a vacation with their friends and had planned to return the following day. “Look, it was obviously a mistake. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad,” Cruz said in a bid for sympathy from the public, also saying that, like millions of others, his "family lost heat and water.” Unfortunately, this defense all came apart when a hero from Heidi Cruz's group chat leaked their texts to the New York Times, and revealed that the Cruz's had been planning to escape for several days, and invited others to go along with them.

But enough about the human members of the Cruz family: What about Snowflake? Houston-based reporter Michael Hardy sought to answer this question, and drove down to the Cruz home, where he saw that the family's mansion did indeed look uninhabited and sans power — but still very much with Snowflake.

Hardy said he heard barking coming from the home, and noticed a small, white dog looking out the window of the front door. When asked, a security guard on the property identified himself as the dog-sitter. While it's good to know Snowflake wasn't totally home alone, it's also no surprise that Hardy's tweeted photo of the dog, looking abandoned, quickly went viral.

"Update: Snowflake has now joined the 99.9 percent of Americans who reportedly can’t stand @tedcruz," one person tweeted. "I stand with Snowflake," comedian Kathy Griffin wrote. "In the event you thought @tedcruz could not possibly be a more detestable human being, he left his poodle alone in the house, freezing without electricity while they left to Cancún," journalist Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted. Others similarly wrote about how Snowflake deserved better, with many users going as far as tagging the ASPCA and PETA in their posts.

Cruz has now joined a long line of neglectful politicians whose public slip-ups in failing to care for their animals reveal some deep cruelty. Harkening back to the Mitt Romney dog-on-car-roof incident of 2007, Cruz proves that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their pets. Snowflake deserves better.