A man was passing an empty lot in his neighborhood when he noticed an open box that hadn’t been there before. For some reason, he felt compelled to walk over and look inside — and he was shocked to find two little puppies, unconscious and essentially frozen from the extreme cold.
The man had no idea if it was too late to save the puppies but he knew he had to try, so he rushed them to KC Pet Project in hopes that it could help. Staffers immediately knew that the puppies’ chances were slim, and quickly set about trying to save their lives.
“They were in very bad shape when they came to us,” Tori Fugate, director of marketing and communications at KC Pet Project, told The Dodo. “We rushed them to our veterinary clinic for immediate treatment. They were very dehydrated and their little bodies were freezing. Our staff worked for hours on them, giving them fluids and holding them for warmth.”
Staffers at the rescue did absolutely everything they could to try and warm the puppies up and get their body temperatures back to normal and, miraculously, their efforts paid off. The little 3-week-old puppies seemed to be doing better, but the staff was still worried that they may not make it through the night. So one staff member took them home for the night in case they needed any additional care. By the morning, both puppies were doing so much better, and everyone was shocked and elated by their progress.
“They were able to eat and they were back to a normal state,” Fugate said. “We gave them gruel in the afternoon and they were starving — so much so they almost took a bath in it. We were thrilled!”
No one has any idea who could have dumped these little puppies in such a cruel way, and everyone at the rescue is just grateful that they somehow managed to pull through despite all the odds. They’re now in a foster home, where they’ll stay until they’re 8 weeks old and are ready to go off to their forever homes.
The rescue has already had a lot of people interested in the puppies — including the man who found them, who might end up adopting one of them. In the meantime, they’re loving their time in their foster home, and will never have to worry about being left out in the cold ever again.
