Senator Ted Cruz is in the doghouse with a number of critics who betray him for leaving his little dog Snowflake at home in the freezing cold – while he and the rest of the family flew to Cancun, Mexico, according to a report.
The Republican lawmaker has claimed in the wake of public outcry that he only accompanied his teenage daughters on their trip with friends – noting that his family, like millions of his fellow Texans, had lost heat and water.
Michael Hardy, a reporter for New York magazine Intelligencer, said he decided to pay a visit to Cruz’s Houston home in the exclusive River Oaks neighborhood, where he saw a white dog peering out of a window pane of the front door.
“Is this Senator Cruz’s house?” the reporter asked a man getting out of a vehicle parked in the driveway.
The man, who identified himself as a guard, said yes and the senator was not home.
When asked who took care of the lonely street dog in the supposedly chilly house, the guard said so.
In 2014, Cruz identified the dog as a rescue puppy named Snowflake, Hardy wrote on Twitter, where he posted a photo of the abandoned dog.
“I just passed Ted Cruz’s house in Houston. Its lights are off, but a neighbor told me the block got power back on last night. Also, Ted seems to have left the family poodle behind, ”he wrote.
His post caused a flood of vitriol against the embattled senator.
“Tell me they really didn’t leave that dog at home alone,” one person wrote.
“That dog deserves better,” snapped another.
“Snowflake has now joined the 99.9 percent of Americans who reportedly can’t stand @tedcruz,” said a third.
Some users have tagged the ASPCA and PETA, while others have expressed some skepticism about the image.
“Where’s the snow and ice?” said one.
“I don’t think this is really @tedcruz house, where’s the snow?” added one more.
“I tried to explain that after two sunny days at 40 degrees the snow and ice had melted, but some insisted the photo was fake,” Hardy wrote.
Cruz, who interrupted his trip to Mexico and returned on Thursday, told reporters that the trip was “clearly a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn’t have done it.”