Ready to Take on the World!

If you want to read the puppies' story from the beginning, start at the bottom of the page and work your way up.

On the road to recovery!
Check out our latest update directly below these new photos. If you want to read the puppies' story from the beginning, start at the bottom of the page and work your way up.

Update: September 3, 2003
At four months of age, these puppies are progressing nicely with treatment and LOTS of love and care! They are extremely bright (the girls have been taught to sit with a hand signal), and they know their names and respond, even when they are in the midst of play. Rosie is the biggest fawn girl, Lilly is the small fawn girl, and Halle is the black girl. The lone male puppy, Guido, is being fostered in a different home, and we feel very confident that he's not going to go anywhere as his foster mom and dad fell in love with him the moment they picked him up and he snuggled into their necks.

As you can see from the most recent photos (see the bottom of the page), their skin is not as red, which means that the mites in their skin are dying off. Eventually the mites will all die off and their hair will begin to grow back. They still need to go to the vet weekly (they have been gaining about 1/2 pound per week and their medicine dosage needs to be adjusted accordingly). In about a month they should be able to be spayed and neutered and we will then look to place them in their "forever homes." Whomever adopts one of these precious babies must be prepared to continue with their treatment, which may take an additional year or longer, but they are the sweetest, most loving little puppies you could ever want!

Original story (from August 2003):
Born May 1, 2003, these four puppies came from a young, former puppy-mill mama. When it was discovered they had generalized demodectic mange and their former owner found that she couldn't sell the puppies, she contacted PugSavers. (For more information on mange, go here.)

For the next two weeks, PugSavers tried to arrange to get the puppies, but the former owner would not show up to appointments or return phone calls. Finally, on August 9, she called and left a voice mail message that she thought it was cruel to let the puppies live and that she was going to take them to animal control to be put to sleep!

While demodex can be unattractive, there was no reason that these puppies should be put to death. We desperately called her, but she would not call us back. We contacted animal control and they agreed to turn them over to us. Our volunteer Starr Craft rushed over the Animal Control and then met another volunteer in Auburn to take the puppies to Elk Grove.

Our amazing vet, Dr. Kelly Byam of Abel Pet Clinic in Elk Grove, came in to her office at 5:30 on a Saturday evening (even though she had tickets to a Monarchs game at 7:00) and checked each and every puppy, and gave their foster homes the proper medication to treat the puppies.

The puppies are currently in foster homes and are going to need some costly treatment for several months. The 3 girls and 1 boy will also need to be spayed or neutered before they are adopted. If you would like to contribute to their care, please click here.

The First Photos (August 2003)

Updated Photos (September 2003)





Guido, snug as a bug in his foster (and probably permanent!) home