Guardians of the Galaxy Star Dave Bautista Adopts Neglected Puppy

Dave Bautista is the wrestler-turned-actor best known for playing Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he was recently seen starring in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead and is one of the many big names who will be featured in Denis Villeneuve highly-anticipated upcoming Dune adaptation. The actor is also an animal lover and made headlines back in 2019 for adopting two abandoned Pitbulls from an animal shelter. Well, it appears Bautista’s household is growing as he just adopted another neglected pup this week.

Last week, Bautista took to Instagram to share the story of an abused puppy and offer a reward for anyone who might have any information about what happened. “ATTN Tampa Bay: I will personally hand $5000 cash to the person who gives information leading to the arrest and conviction of the sick piece of shit responsible for this. In addition @humanesocietytampabay is also offering $1500. If you know anything please contact @humanesocietytampabay or @safek9,” the actor wrote. Two days ago, Bautista offered up a happy update, revealing he decided to adopt the pup himself. 

“UPDATE! Sage was horribly abused and left for dead. Here’s her update. Thanks from the bottom of my #DreamChaser heart to @safek9 @humanesocietytampabay and @alvarezinjurylawpllc 🙏🏼,” Bautista wrote. In the video, he reveals the “bad news,” which is they don’t have any solid leads on who abused poor Sage. However, he did deliver some “good news.” Sage is now officially Penny Bautista. You can check out the video below:

Bautista will soon be returning to Marvel to film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but he has admitted recently that he’s in a “weird place” with playing Drax in the MCU. Now that he’s 52-years-old, he feels he’s past the point of wanting to play a character with his shirt off all of the time. During a recent interview, Bautista shared that the role of Drax changed his life, but admitted he thinks Marvel “dropped the ball” on Drax’s story.

“That role changed the trajectory of my life,” Bautista told Collider. “It’s always going to be special to me. Now that I’m four films in… I really wished they would have invested more in Drax, personally. Because I think Drax has more of a story to tell. I think Drax has a really interesting backstory which they dropped the ball on. That’s no dig on Marvel. They had their slate, I know what they’re focused on, that’s what they have slated out. But man, I think they really missed the ball on Drax. He has such a great backstory. Selfishly, as a performer, that would have given me the opportunity to show different sides of Drax, emotionally. And physically as well. Because, if you notice, Drax, although he looks like a badass, you look at him and he looks terrifying, but Drax gets his ass kicked more than any other Marvel character…The whole ‘Destroyer’ thing they just threw that out the window…people just fell so in love with the comedic side of Drax they tapped into that, then they tapped into it more, then they really dug a hole into it. But we missed a huge boat on that character and I don’t think it’ll ever come back around. But I’m really just looking forward to finishing out this whole journey.”

Congrats to Bautista on his new pup!