#Ted Cruz left pet poodle home alone during Cancun trip: report

Sen. Ted Cruz is in the doghouse with some critics who blasted him for leaving his pet pooch Snowflake at home amid freezing temps — as he and the rest of the family jetted off to Cancun, Mexico, according to a report.

The Republican lawmaker has claimed in the wake of public outrage that he was merely escorting his teenage daughters on their trip with friends — noting like millions of his fellow Texans, his family had lost heat and water.

Michael Hardy, a reporter for New York magazine’s Intelligencer, said he decided to pay a visit to Cruz’s Houston home in the exclusive River Oaks neighborhood, where he spotted a white dog peering out a pane of glass on the front door.

“Is this Senator Cruz’s house?” the reporter asked a man who stepped out of a vehicle parked in the driveway.

The man, who identified himself as a security guard, said it was and that the senator wasn’t home.

When asked who was taking care of the lonely mutt in the presumably chilly house, the guard said he was.

In 2014, Cruz identified the dog as a rescue puppy named Snowflake, Hardy wrote on Twitter, where he posted a photo of the forlorn dog.

“Just drove by Ted Cruz’s house in Houston. His lights are off but a neighbor told me the block got its power back last night. Also, Ted appears to have left behind the family poodle,” he wrote.

His post generated a stream of vitriol against the embattled senator.

“Tell me they really didn’t leave that dog home alone,” one person wrote.

“That pooch deserves better,” another snarled.

“Snowflake has now joined the 99.9 percent of Americans who reportedly can’t stand @tedcruz,” a third said.

Some users tagged the ASPCA and PETA, while others expressed some skepticism about the image.

“Where’s the snow and ice?” one said.

“I don’t think this is really @tedcruz house, where’s the snow?” added another.

“I tried to explain that after two sunny, 40-degree days, the snow and ice had melted, but some continued to insist the photo was fake,” Hardy wrote.

Cruz, who cut short his trip to Mexico and returned Thursday, told reporters that the trip was “obviously a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn’t have done it.”