All second-hand dogs come with a story. The real Puglet was recycled because his original humans had too many dogs to take care of. His Dalmatian brother Dutch grew up to be “too big”.
These kinds of stories are just as common as the sad, tragic ones. But one of the most remarkable things about dogs is how easily they can forget their own stories. By giving a second-hand dog a second chance, even the saddest story can have a happy ending.
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These are the stories of just two perfectly perfect recycled pugs we know
Sophie was one of 61 pugs rescued from a puppy factory in Missouri. Growing up at the factory, she lived in a cage all the time. She had no human of her own. No dog friends. No grassy parks to play in. No nothing. She just made puppies. And when the puppy factory decided to stop making puppies, Sophie and all the other pugs were going to be put to sleep…FOREVER.
Luckily, a rescue group called ForgottenK9s stepped in. They drove all the way from their home in Georgia to Missouri, saved the pugs, then drove through the night to an adoption fair in New Jersey where available homes were more plentiful. All adoptable pugs found homes right away – including Sophie. Lots of the pugs had medical problems and needed some serious TLC; ForgottenK9s gave them temporary homes and took care of them all until forever homes were found.
It’s been more than a year since her rescue and Sophie is totally digging her new & improved life. She loves hanging out in the garden, snuggling on the couch with her human, and is really grateful for little things - like having a soft bed and clean food bowl.
Sophie’s human says life has gotten better for everyone since her rescue. “Both our lives are happier now that we have each other.”
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Hope was found abandoned and tied to a local veterinary office. She was in shock from pain and barely responsive. A major eye injury left her eye hanging from its socket, infected, bulging, bleeding, and in need of removal. Without extensive medical care, she would die from the pain and infection.
The veterinary office that found Hope contacted Southern Nevada Pug Rescue. The folks at SNPR knew Animal Control would mean certain death for a dog in Hope’s condition and took immediate responsibility for her care. A thorough exam revealed Hope had further injuries, most likely inflicted by a human. Southern Nevada Pug Rescue was not deterred by the prospect of draining their entire bank account to get Hope the treatment she needed. Instead, they rallied the support of dog lovers everywhere and raised enough money to cover Hope’s costly medical bills.
Within days of surgery, Hope was happy and prancing around the hospital, eager to meet and greet everyone. She was quickly adopted and is looking forward to very good life with her new humans.
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Please share a story about your own recycled dog in the comments section below.
From jenn:
We have our own recycled dog….
Little Petunia was found one morning in an overnight drop box at a local animal shelter in North Carolina. She was scared, had difficulty seeing, teeth infections and obviously recently gave birth. Just because they get “old “doesn’t mean people should get rid of them. Senior dogs can be the best dogs.
They took her in fixed her up and we found her online at petfinder.com. I couldn’t resist her cute tongue hanging out in the pictures and we applied to adopted her! She was driven over 4 hours to her new forever home and we can’t imagine life without her sneezing, snorting pug face. She is a senior pug and a recycled pug but she loves you with all her little heart!
From Sabrina:
Barney is a chocolate labs, and his job for four years was to make little chocolate labs. If life were just hangin’ with the ladies and making little chocolate labs, life wouldn’t be so bad. But dogs also need good food and room to play and things to do and Barney didn’t have any of that. He spent those first four years stuck in a box waiting for the next lady to come through.
When the puppymill was shut down, Barney was overweight and his fur was all orange from bad food and sleeping in pee. Barney was first in a shelter but because they had so many dogs, they gave him to a rescue in Ottawa called Hopeful Hearts (www.hopefulhearts.ca). From there he was put into a foster home with another chocolate lab where he started to get some exercise, learn basic manners, and he learned to play with BALLS.
After two months in foster care, Barney lost weight and started to become chocolate again. When he first came to visit me, my only concerns were that he had to be nice to Beulah my pug, and Marble my cat. Barney had previously taken a long time to warm up to other dogs (usually growling at them), but with Beulah he started to play immediately! I guess that is the power of PUG! When he met the cat I think he considered chasing her but she puffed herself up and she must have looked pretty scary so he cowered a bit and walked away.
So now Barney is in his forever home! He can’t make little chocolate labs anymore, and he goes to bed with the same woman every night (his sister, Beulah), but I think that BALLS and FOODS more than make up for it!
From Lucy:
The two best dogs on earth, Dior & Chanel “Chihuahuas”
Both my babies where adopted from the same shelter. Chanel is a white mix who was abused, She was afraid of people , When I tried pick her up she would cry and lay down , After a few days of love she understood that she was finally safe, Dior is 3 legged Long hair Chi who was dumped at the shelter, Sad to know that just because she was born only with 3 legs the owner didn’t want her. This two dogs love each other so much as much as we love them , I made new friends because of my Chihuahuas , Friends that are now close to our family, There is so much to say how they make me feel, How both make me smile and laugh when they chase each other and try to stop and slide across my living room wood floor, And how my cat Prada snuggles with them and lays next to them and lets both of them jump over her over and over again . My new tenant seen how much this recycled animals can bring he also adopted one and now we have made our building pet friendly!!!!
From Amy:
Four years ago my boyfriend and I finally had a home with a yard and decided we were ready to adopt a dog. We went down to the local SPCA and fell in love with Layla, a 10 month old pitbull mix with the sweetest brown eyes! When we opened the door to her crate, she crawled out on her belly and right into my boyfriend’s lap! He immediately fell in love with her (as did I) and we knew she was the dog for us. Layla had lived most of her life crated in an apartment, and was given up because when she was let out of the crate she would run around like crazy and jump on people. When we first brought Layla home she did run wild in the backyard, but once she began receiving regular exercise she settled right down.
We’ve now had Layla for four years and couldn’t ask for a better dog! She now has a ‘brother’ named Hank (a chihuahua mix) whom we also adopted from the SPCA. They are best buddies and love their daily walks together. They both get along fantastically with our cats…we even catch them all snoozing on the couch together!
Recycled dogs are the BEST!
From Saira:
I agree that Recycled dogs are the best. Two of mine are rescues. Sophie was found by animal control as a stray when she was only a tiny puppy. They took her to the shelter, and the shelter was going to euthanize her because she had a medical condition that they couldn’t figure out. Luckily, they called the pug rescue instead, and the rescue took her to a specialist where she was finally diagnosed with mastocytosis. Two years later, she is doing fantastic, and is just a happy and playful little girl. It’s been two since she found her way to us, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her!
From Kacy:
Rupert, our recycled basset hound, was found wandering the streets of southern San Diego. A big-boned boy, he weighed in at a mere 29 lbs when the shelter picked him up. A wonderful doggy daycare took him in and nursed him back to health. We were lucky enough to adopt him in May 2008 at which time he was up to 36 lbs. He is now a healthy 64 lbs and enjoys wrestling with his basset brother, Cowboy; eating good meals daily; and hogging a nice warm bed every night. We could not have asked for a better dog, and it constantly amazes us that someone felt he didn’t deserve a home. He is devoted, loving and humorous everyday, and is truly the love of our lives.
From PEGGY:
i adopted my herman (aka ‘hermie’) from the city shelter. we are really not quite sure what breed he is but that’s not really whats important to me. this absolute sunshine in my life was found tied to a fence. discarded like yesterdays trash and subsequently found himself at the high kill municipal shelter on the “sick ward” slated to be euthanized within 48 hours if a home was not found.
he developed an uri (upper respiratory infection) aka kennel cough. most dogs and cats with a uri do not even get “viewed” by the public. the weekly euthanasia list was sent out to area rescues – usually a last ditch effort to save a life.
unfortunately many don’t get saved.
by the grace of god hermie’s face caught the eye of a local rescue. he was posted online as urgent and when i saw that face…the rest is history.
my sunshine loves to swim and will even dive underwater (that’s where we think the lab in him is obvious) but he is also a lover of all dogs and people, that’s where the terrier comes in. but with his disproportionately large head ..that’s where american bulldog comes in.
i really don’t care about his pedigree. to me he is perfect. and although he may have been somebody elses trash… by god, he is my treasure.
adopting a rescued companion some may say you save a life (you do) but sometimes they save you too. as a first responder in new york i have my days where i come home feeling very sad and stressed. but when hermie comes running all in the world is good again. how could it not be?
From sheila marshall:
I had Buddy only a puppy at the time. When I took Buddy to the park for a run we always saw a lady with 3 dogs, one of the dogs was so beautiful a big black and tan dog he always came to say hello to us. One day I took Buddy to a different park and I saw (this big dog didn’t know his name then)he came across the road to us and followed us to the park, came home with us and settled in, he had a drink and went to sleep. I called his owner who came to collect Cobba. Next day Cobba came with us again, after his walk he came in for some food and a sleep. We took him home this carried on for 5 days he was back and to, to our house.
One sunday morning a lady knocked at my front door and asked if I knew this dog. Poor Cobba had been chained up in the garden and he managed to escape with a long lead and chain and came to our house. When we phoned his owner she said she was fed up and was taking this dog to the RSPCA centre to be rehomed. It only took us 5 minutes to say we would love to keep him, his owner just gave him away not bothered at all, she said he was 6 years old.
Cobba settled in with Buddy but he was an escape artist as big as he was he used to escape through the cat flap over the fence and wander off. We used to bring him back in the car he loved a ride in the car.
We took him to the vets for a check up and his ears were badly infected, this soon cleared with medication his owner hadn’t even taken him to a vet.
After escaping a few times someone told me to have him neutered which I did and he never wandered again. Cobba was such a fantastic dog so gentle, one day I saw him on the settee and he got off quick. I really don’t mind dogs on the settee. Cobba was quite over weight and the vet put him on a weight loss programme and he did lose weight. Cobba and Buddy loved going for walks together.
One day we decided to get a 3rd dog, we went to a sanctuary to see the dogs, and a little dog was shown to us. Goldie was only 18 months old and had a litter of puppies and had been dumped at the centre. How can people be so cruel. We took Goldie home Cobba Buddy and Goldie were the best of friends. Poor little Goldie still missing her puppies found a teddy bear which she loves. When we took Goldie for her first walk in the park she just ran for about an hour she is adorable.
In the park one day Cobba fell down it was so upsetting he had a stroke and we had to get the animal ambulance to take him to the vets. He was put to sleep aged 16 years.
We still have Buddy nearly 15 and Goldie is about 10. Recycled dogs need a chance of a new home.
From Elizabeth Golub:
We adopted Baylor, a brindled pit/lab mix, from North Shore Animal League on Long Island in June 2008. He was laying so quietly in his pen that we almost missed him until someone from North Shore pointed him out to us as a “good quiet boy”. He is the best dog ever. We’ve had other dogs and they’ve almost all been good dogs but this guys is truly the best. It’s almost as if he knows that we’ve “rescued” him from a terrible life, he’s so good. Before ending up at North Shore, nobody knows where he was for sure, but it seems that wherever he was, he was used for target practice because he has buckshot in his chest and in his hind legs. It took a while for him to warm up and become comfortable and feel safe. Now, he’s a member of the family and enjoys his place in our “pack”. He loves running around the back yard and showing us how fast he is. He shows us the belly because he knows we will scratch it. He is clever and active but not rambunctious. I hesitated at first, because he was a pit mix but boy-o-boy, am I glad that my husband was persistent. In addition to providing a loving home for Baylor, another spot was opened up at North Shore for another homeless dog. Win Win. Going forward, I think it’s safe to say that all our dogs will be rescue dogs.