Owning a pet should be a responsibility for life, but apparently, not everyone thinks like that. No matter how much the shelters try to welcome everyone with open arms and offer assistance, some individuals still opt for the despicable act of abandonment.
Why? I think I’ll never understand.
In the city of Ridgeway, Virginia, rescuers were left utterly shocked when they found not one, not two, or even three puppies left abandoned, but ELEVEN.
Two different litters of puppies were dumped on the side of the road and left to fend for themselves.
If it weren’t for compassionate rescuers, who knows what could have happened to these poor babies.
Abandoned And Starving In The Woods
According to a Facebook post from the Henry County Animal Shelter in Virginia, their officers received a call on March 5, 2024 regarding a litter of puppies running in the road in the city of Ridgeway.
A couple of hours later, they received another call about a different litter of puppies only a mile away.
“These 2 different litters deep in the woods scavenging for food. Only 1 mile apart from each other. Coincidence? We think not,” Henry County Animal Shelter said in their post.
The puppies were terrified, starving, and left to fend for themselves. The animal officers spent a whole day rescuing eleven puppies in total who were roaming the area in search of food.
The German Shepherd puppies were in terrible condition – covered in ticks, malnourished, and some tested positive for worms and parasites.
Following the rescue, two puppies were adopted and the other nine puppies were transferred to Virginia German Shepherd Rescue, which had several foster homes set up for these scared puppies.
Six puppies went to one foster home, two went to another, and one puppy went to a third foster home.
Everything seemed to be going well, but then the shelter was slapped with one bad news after another.
Fighting To Save Lives
Only a couple of days after arriving at their foster homes, five puppies tested positive for parvo and had to be hospitalized. If left untreated, parvo can be fatal for dogs.
“If you end up getting a dog that gets Parvo, it’s going to be vomiting, having diarrhea, it needs to go into having emergency care 24/7, and there’s lots of dehydration and medications for pain. They have to be fed via tubes for nutrients because they’re not going to be eating. It’s a lot of day-to-day care,” Monja Vadnais, Virginia German Shepherd Rescue volunteer and foster, told WDBJ7.
It was a very difficult couple of days, praying and hoping that they would make it out alive.
After weeks of treatment and thousands of dollars spent, all of the puppies are thankfully now out of the hospital and slowly getting better.
The most important thing now is to nurture them back to health, helping them gain some weight and regain their strength. Hopefully, there will be only smiles and happy tails from now on.
Once the puppies are completely healthy, they will be available for adoption through Virginia rescue.
Despite efforts to figure out who might have done this awful act of animal cruelty, the Henry County Sheriff’s Office sadly was unable to find the perpetrator.
“If you’re going to own pets, you need to be responsible. They need to be cared for adequately. They should be treated more like a family member than just an animal to be dropped in the woods. Please don’t abandon your pets,” Sheriff Wayne Davis with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office told WDBJ7.