She waited days in the same spot.
The first thing Faith Easdale noticed was the dirty pink dress. It was barely more than a scrap of fabric now, but it showed the dog had once been loved and cared for.
The matted poodle sat in the same spot on the busy California street as if waiting for her family to come back. Surely, they’d just forgotten her? But as the days passed, she hung her head, defeated.
Easdale, who works with the rescue Dream Fetchers, knew she had to do something to help the little dog all dressed up with nowhere to go.
“I thought, ‘Oh no, poor little baby sitting and waiting,’” Easdale wrote on Facebook. “So I raced out there and I didn’t see her. I always panic — praying they found [a] safe haven somewhere, but I continued to search. My friend met me and we started asking people in the area.”
One man told Easdale and her fellow rescuer that the dog had been there for days and sometimes hid in the bushes.
“I walked quietly and there she was, the saddest sight,” Easdale wrote. “We very quietly set baby gates around and I went in slowly. She was so scared.”
Easdale comforted the dog and quickly won her trust. “Once I got her settled, she actually crawled in my lap and gave me the sweetest kisses,” Easdale wrote. “[I] took off that filthy dress, gave her a nice dinner and soft blanket.”
Easdale brought the dog home, bathed her and checked her over for any obvious health issues. Besides her heavy, matted coat, she seemed like a healthy young dog. She didn’t have a chip or collar, and Easdale couldn’t figure out why someone would toss away such a gentle pup.
“We rarely know the story,” Easdale told The Dodo. “Usually, if there is an owner, they would have showed up by now. The area wasn’t good where she was sitting and waiting.”
The dog got her very own spa day and couldn’t have looked more different after her grooming appointment.
Her groomers named her Sugar.
“I feel like this is the turning point so many times — like a little Cinderella story,” Easdale wrote in a Facebook post. “Giving them a second chance is what keeps us doing this. Keeps pushing, hoping for better days.”
Easdale is looking for a foster home for Sugar where she can decompress, and then the sweet poodle will begin her search for a family who will be as faithful to her as she is to them.
