Sometimes, people "rescue" animals that dont' need it. It sounds like the dog in this story did. . . but its not good to encourage people to think they can do this with impunity.
Well... right! That's pretty much my concern. Before I started fattening up my young dogs for shows, we would take them out and people would constantly comment on how skinny they were. If someone saw a dog like this on a tie-out in a yard, would they assume she was abused and steal her?
Our male pup has a more barrel-ish ribcage, so its even more noticeable when he's not carrying extra weight. But abused? Mistreated? Neglected? Needing rescue? Hardly. Undoubtedly our dogs eat better than many, and live better than many, in the house. But snap judgements can ruin peoples' lives. (I blogged that, after someone snap-judged me as a dog fighter because I was selling a treadmill.)
I realize that in this case, the evidence can be fairly condemning against the dog's owner, but I also haven't heard their side yet. What if the owner had to go in the hospital? What if the dog had seen a vet already, and the vet said there was nothing that could be done, that it was simply extreme old age taking its toll? Maybe he was tied outside because he was incontinent. No muscle tone, dehydration: are these things that can happen to an old dog naturally? I don't know; I'm not a vet. That the dog died 6 months later indicates to me that the "rescuing" did not appreciably extend his already impressive life, but was most likely very confusing for him.
All I'm saying is, we don't want people thinking they can play judge and jury on their own. They need to go through the proper channels. So I'm glad there was some kind of repercussions in this case.