Ice-Skating Rescue Dog Melts Our Hearts

Lori Ennis
by Lori Ennis
Four legs are apparently just as good as two when it comes to ice skating, and an adorable rescue dog is melting the ice (and our hearts!) as he proves it!


Cheryl Del Sangro is a retired professional ice skater. She rescued her six-year-old dog Benny after he’d spent six months in a kill shelter in Utah. He made it to the euthanasia list, and a local Las Vegas rescue pulled him in hopes of having someone in the Vegas area give him a forever home.


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Benny had no such luck, though, until Del Sangro saw him in the photo, and she fell in love at first sight with the Labrador Retriever. As Labs tend to have, Benny had a lot of energy and was a great playmate for her other two dogs. Benny was smart, too, and Del Sangro knew that he would be great for training.


Del Sangro’s photographer friend Rick Vierkandt worked with the Bark Gallery, and suggested that Benny would be great for a video they wanted to make about the Golden Knights making it to the Stanley Cup. In the video, they’d have Benny running on the ice with a hockey stick and puck, and maybe do some tricks. They weren’t planning on him actually skating.


He loves being on the ice! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/nrdigs9FRh


— Bark Gallery (@thebarkgallery) September 24, 2018


Obviously, a dog as cute as Benny garnered lots of social media views with the video, and Del Sangro thought Benny had enjoyed the ice so much that she decided to see if she could actually teach him to skate. She made him a pair of skates and hit the ice.


Good boy that he is, he rocked ice skating pretty quickly, and after initially being led to the ice, he started skating on his own like he had been doing it all his life. Del Sangro said that she treated him as if she was teaching a toddler and he was amazing.


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Benny also skates without his skates just for fun and to cool off, but uses them on front paws to allow him to control movements with his back. Del Sangro hopes that the Vegas Golden Knights will bring Benny and his very talented paws on as part of game nights, showing the country that rescued dogs are simply fantastic.


Del Sangro says that his tail wags the whole time because he loves it, and people love how happy he is. She hopes sharing his sad beginning in contrast to his happy ending will encourage more people to rescue dogs and see what phenomenal things they can do as well!

Lori Ennis
Lori Ennis

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