A man was walking his dog around Gary, Indiana, when he stumbled upon something that made him stop in his tracks. On a pile of discarded mattresses, he saw something moving.
When he got closer, he realized what he was looking at — a litter of six abandoned puppies left to fend for themselves with no mama in sight.
As soon as he figured out what was going on, he called Silverstray Social, an organization that both rescues animals as well as provides support for pet families. It was the Friday evening before Memorial Day, and the Silverstray Social team wasn’t expecting any more rescue calls. But as soon as they got word of the puppies who needed help, they sprang into action.
While Layce, a volunteer from Silverstray Social, was on her way, the man who’d found the puppies placed them in a makeshift kennel. As soon as Layce arrived, she could see that the puppies were extremely emaciated — they were starving. Based on their size, the rescuers assumed they couldn’t have been more than 2 months old.
Once the puppies’ rescuers had a chance to fully assess them, they were in for a huge surprise about how old they actually were.
“What everybody thought [were] 6- to 8-week-old puppies ended up being 6-month-old puppies … That’s how malnourished they were,” Kelly Carey, founder of Silverstray Social, told The Dodo.
Carey called around to different partner organizations she works with to see who would be able to take the babies. A local foster organization called Guardians of the Green Mile agreed to take them. Before they were transferred there, the puppies had an overnight stay at a volunteer’s home.