10 amazing PACC adoption success stories

Penelope is one festive pit bull.

She has a Christmas stocking with her name on it, a Santa dress with matching sequined antlers, and she loves to have her nails painted pink.

Most importantly, she is devoted to her new family, which includes three little boys and an adopted pit bull brother.

Just a few months ago, she was found motionless near an arroyo in a south-side neighborhood.

Someone reported her to the Pima Animal Care Center after noticing she had not moved for more than a day, said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director.

The PACC officer who picked her up assumed she had been hit by a car, and called ahead for the shelter veterinarians to prepare for surgery, Hollish said.

However, when Jennifer Wilcox, PACC’s head veterinarian, examined her, it was discovered that the young dog had pyometra, an infection of the uterus commonly suffered by pets who are not spayed.

Penelope’s infection had been neglected for so long that her uterus had perforated, and she could not move from the pain, Hollish said.

The shelter’s medical team immediately removed her uterus and flushed the infection from her abdomen, said Hollish, adding that it was obvious she had been used for breeding.

As the dog started to recover, PACC’s medical team turned to one of the shelter’s volunteers and asked if her family could foster the dog until she was fully recovered.

The family had already successfully fostered a dog who was recently adopted.

After several days, however, Penelope returned to PACC for an additional surgery to clear the infection.

By the time she returned to her foster home to complete her recovery, it was clear she was home for good, Hollish said. Penelope was devoted to her new family, and bonded with their other rescued dog.

The family continues to volunteer at PACC, walking adoptable dogs and helping to socialize animals.

They also plan to include Penelope and her new canine brother in their family photos.

Roselia Sosa’s family went to Pima Animal Care Center to adopt a kitten.

They came home with two.

Toph had lost his eyes from an infection. Azula had been rescued from a hoarding situation and was extremely skittish. The pair were inseparable, and one guided the other. But not the one you might think.

“Since Toph is so friendly and cuddly with everyone, he kind of helps Azula,” Sosa said.

“We liked Azula, the gray cat very, very much, but she was bonded with Toph, the black cat. That’s how we ended up bringing them both home,” she said. “Toph was really really friendly. He was looking for so much attention.”

Toph and Azula were two of the hundreds of kittens who found their way to PACC last summer. “We often take in more than a dozen mewling, orphaned kittens every single day” during that seasonal peak, said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director.

Toph arrived as a palm-sized, weeks-old stray. “His eyes were completely crusted shut from a painful herpes virus,” Hollish said.

“Two years ago, we would never have had the staff or supplies during the height of kitten season to save an extremely sick baby animal like Toph,” she said. Donations from the community have helped boost the shelter’s medical care.

PACC’s veterinary team started treating Toph with donated eye drops and gave him antibiotics to cure his upper-respiratory infection — it’s like a kitty cold, she said.

After six weeks of care, Toph’s cold was gone, but his eyes had still not improved, and the medical staff felt they had no option except to remove them, Hollish said.

After Toph recovered from his surgery, PACC volunteers paired him with Azula, a young kitten who’d been rescued from an apartment filled with a dozen cats.

In their new home, the cats stay strictly indoors.

Azula loves cuddling with the kids and is a bit timid with adults, Sosa said. Toph is the more adventurous, jumping onto the couch within a week.

Janice Roop lives near Mammoth, but she drove to Tucson to look at the adoptable dogs at Pima Animal Care Center after viewing them online.

“When you’re looking at their sweet little faces online and they look like they’re sad or they’re going through a lot, you want to go down and look at them and spend time with them,” she said.

That’s how she and her husband came to adopt Peppy, a young Chihuahua who was covered in stitches. Considered a special needs dog, it appeared he may have been attacked by a bigger animal.

The couple adopted the pup and stopped for a hamburger so they could spend some time alone with him before arriving home to their other animals.

It wasn’t until later that Roop had time to read Peppy’s medical records — he had been rescued from a garbage can in a south-side alley in October. The 5-pound pup had been tied in a garbage bag with just his head sticking out and was so injured he could barely move or breathe.

That’s when the tears came, Roop said. “I can not believe people are like that.”

A man searching for aluminum cans found the gravely injured dog and called PACC. The animal care officers who responded alerted the shelter’s medical team that they had a dog needing immediate attention. X-rays showed that both of his lungs were nearly collapsed. He had bite wounds on his neck, and he was in shock, said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director.

Roop, who recently adopted two other Chihuahuas, believes Peppy barked to draw attention — which saved his life.

“I feel very lucky to get him,” she said.

“It took him about a week to get that sparkle in his eyes again,” Roop said. “He’s very playful — he’s very happy and very loving.”

Peppy has put on some weight and looks much healthier, she said. Still, the dog is so small the couple stays with him whenever they go outside “to make sure the owls and hawks don’t come down.”

Roop said she appreciates that PACC has changed its philosophy in recent years and is moving toward being a no-kill facility.

The couple may move closer to Tucson, and if they do Roop said she’d like to foster special needs animals to give them a better chance at finding loving homes.

“There’s a lot more dogs in there — missing eyes, missing legs,” she said. “It doesn’t make them any less loving. It doesn’t make them any less of a dog.”

There are more than dogs and cats at Pima Animal Care Center in need of homes.

The county shelter also takes in other animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, turtles and a variety of birds.

And late last year, a 133-pound potbellied pig, who arrived as an injured stray after wandering west of Tucson.

One of the animal care officers noticed that the pig was friendly but had several puncture wounds around his face.

Once he arrived at PACC, the pig was given some pain medications for his superficial cuts. And he was ravenously hungry.

The pig was already neutered and had once likely been someone’s pet, said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director. He was very affectionate and pressed his snout against people’s legs. Staff adapted an enclosed area for him.

After no one claimed the pig, he was adopted on Jan. 2.

“Right when we saw him we knew that we had to take him home,” said Savannah Rivera, who had spotted the pig’s photo on PACC’s Facebook page.

“He was just such a happy pig,” said Rivera. Her family immediately named him Frodo, and took him home to where Thunder, the pig they raised from a baby, was waiting.

“When we first got him home he was so restless. He could never stay in one spot,” she said, noting that authorities estimated he had been on his own for a couple of years. “Now he’s kind of learned to relax.”

Frodo and Thunder share a yard and each have their own little house. “We have harnesses and we take them for walks. They love going to the park,” Rivera said.

The family had already taught Thunder to sit and shake hands. Frodo is a bit more stubborn than Thunder, but the two have bonded and touch noses affectionately.

“Pigs are really smart animals,” she said. “It’s actually like having a 3-year-old child at times. They are very smart so they need a lot of attention and care.”

Kate Hopeman went to Pima Animal Care Center looking for a kitten or a cat.

Then she saw Lucky, who had been shaved for a recent surgery.

“She was the saddest thing in there,” Hopeman said. Yet, when she put her hand in Lucky’s cage, the cat started purring and rubbing her face against it.

“I fell in love,” Hopeman said.

Hopeman later read that the cat had been shot by an arrow. It took at least a month before someone spotted the impaled cat running around and managed to catch her and bring her to PACC.

The cat had worn down her front teeth trying to remove the arrow herself and needed dental work. She got the help she needed around Christmas last year.

Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director, estimates that nearly 75 percent of shelter animals require some sort of medical care during their stay.

“I got her in March,” said Hopeman, who renamed her Lucky. A volunteer had fostered the cat after her surgery until she could be adopted.

“She’s great. She’s absolutely great. You would never know anything happened to her,” said Hopeman. “She’s totally happy. She totally likes being around people. She’s just the sweetest cat. She’s a total lap cat; she wants to be wherever you are.”

Hopeman lives in Phoenix and adopted a younger (formerly feral) cat at a shelter up there for Lucky. “He’s a little crazy guy. She loves him to death and she mothers him to death. She really likes the company,” she said.

This will be their first Christmas together. Lucky already has all of the toy mice a cat could want. “She’s not a big player,” Hopeman said, “But she does like those mice to carry around.”

“Special-needs animals can be some of the most loving and grateful animals you’ll ever know,” she said.

Some people go straight to the puppies when they are looking to adopt a new dog.

Sally Miller found herself drawn to a senior poodle mix who had been taken to the Pima Animal Care Center as a stray several months earlier.

The little dog’s teeth were in such bad shape they had needed to be pulled. The shelter’s veterinary team removed cancerous mammary tumors, and later discovered she had bone cancer.

Miller first saw the dog around November when she had gone to check on the status of another stray. She returned to visit the senior dog, whom the shelter staff called Lynn, several times.

“She looked so sad and lonely,” said Miller, who took the dog’s medical paperwork to her own veterinarian before adopting so she knew the commitment she was making. Then she took her home.

As a senior, Miller said, “she comes house trained and accepting of people’s oddities. She’s a great dog.”

Now called CD, the little dog happily welcomes Miller home and has bonded with her grandsons and two other rescued dogs. “Her health seems to be pretty good,” Miller said. “She’s so well-trained — there was nothing to do. It’s amazing how many animals out there have interesting lives that make them totally adoptable,” she said.

Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director, said at any given time 5 to 8 percent of PACC’s population is considered senior — at least 8 years old or above.

CD’s adoption was very different from when Miller adopted Mabel, a young black Laborador Retriever who had been trained as a service dog, then taken to PACC in 2008 when her owner fell ill. The shelter was so crowded that Mabel was slated to be euthanized that night.

“She and I just connected. I walked out the door with her,” Miller said.

Miller is very happy with PACC’s increased focus on saving lives. “I think the veterinarians out there are just wonderful. ... It’s a really a nice place to go out to visit with a dog, and find a dog,” said Miller, whose daughter adopted a three-legged dog. “They keep a nice facility out there.”

When Tyler Kloefkorn and his wife, Lindsay Guzman, met Walter the cat, it was love at first sight.

“He was the cutest kitten — he had the most handsome coat and his ears were way too big for his face,” Kloefkorn said. It didn’t matter to them that he had only three legs.

The tiny kitten had come to the Pima Animal Care Center as a stray with a badly injured leg in late July. An abscessed puncture wound had turned into a massive infection.

PACC veterinarian Sarah Rios immediately gave Walter a dose of Convenia, an expensive but effective long-acting injectable antibiotic that was donated by the Friends of PACC, said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director.

They tried to save the leg, but the infection had been neglected for too long and so they had to amputate, she said. Walter recovered in a foster home until he was ready for adoption.

Losing a leg hasn’t seemed to slow Walter — now known as Wally — a bit.

The young cat has many hobbies and talents, his adoptive parents say. He routinely empties soil from pots, hides all sorts of things, and encloses himself in small places.

“Wally is great at holding conversations; we talk with him and he meows right back,” Kloefkorn wrote as part of PACC’s efforts to bring attention to some of 2015’s harder rescues.

“When he finds one of us, he loves to snuggle — we say that he is an aggressive snuggler.”

The couple say they often forget that Wally is missing a hind leg. “Wally loves to race up and down stairs,” Kloefkorn said. “We notice his missing leg only when he tries to scratch his ears. It’s a little heartbreaking to see him move what remains of his leg and not reach anything, but of course we are happy to satisfy any scratches that he needs.”

The couple says they can not thank everyone involved in his rescue enough.

“We couldn’t ask for a better companion,” Kloefkorn said. “He is the perfect therapy for recovering from a stressful day. We are so thankful that Wally was given a second chance in life, and that he found his way to our family.”

Kelly Comstock remembers when Clyde first arrived at the Pima Animal Care Center.

“He shut down,” she said. The big Chow/Shepherd-mix didn’t want to walk on the leash. “He was just trying to hide from the world around him.”

Comstock has volunteered with PACC for five years, and is part of the decompression program the shelter started this year to help socialize scared dogs to the point where they can be placed for adoption.

She didn’t learn Clyde’s story until later — that the 3-year-old mix had been rescued last month from a filthy back yard, with five puppies and no access to shelter or water.

“All of the dogs were thin, undersocialized and in desperate need of care,” said Karen Hollish, PACC’s development director.

Some of the most heart-wrenching cases are animals turned in by their owners — they are bewildered and terrified. Comstock said. “Their whole lives have been turned upside down.”

When Karyn Carlson joined PACC’s medical staff as a veterinarian this year she wanted to do more for the dogs who are stressed and scared, Hollish said. That has included the prescribing of trazodone, an anxiety aid that the county could not buy but was donated by the Friends of PACC.

Next year, Hollish said, PACC plans to launch a desperately needed dog-training and behavior-rehabilitation program for $300,000 funded by two estate gifts totaling $1.3 million.

The decompression program’s volunteers take shifts, working with behaviors, confidence building and trust. Some are skilled at Reiki and dog massage as well, she said, and also use calming scent therapies like lavender diluted with water spritzed along kennel walls and bedding.

The medication helped Clyde with his cowering and the positive attention from volunteers started paying off. “He began enjoying the walks. He learned to play,” Comstock said.

Potential adopters are informed about the program as well as what the animal may need to transition into his new home. The couple who recently adopted Clyde posted a video on PACC’s Facebook page for alumni.

“It’s a cute video of him running and playing like a normal dog. He’s definitely not leading the life that he lived before,” Comstock said. “And they were excited to spend their first Christmas with him.”

Greg Strang initially brought JoJo into his home as a foster cat after the passing of his previous cat, Mr. Bumble.

Although no cat can ever replace another, JoJo — at 34 pounds — did his best to replace two cats, Strang wrote as part of Pima Animal Care Center’s efforts to highlight remarkable adoptions.

Back on June 25, JoJo weighed 34 pounds and appeared ill when PACC officers rescued him from a sweltering apartment complex parking lot in northwest Tucson.

Panting heavily, the cat was given IV fluids at the shelter, along with a cooling coat shave, and very watchful care in PACC’s ICU, said Karen Hollish, the shelter’s development director.

JoJo eventually finished his recovery with Strang, who adopted him and took him home. JoJo tried to crawl into bed — huffing and puffing and only jumping about a foot off the ground, Strang recalled.

He finally made it when Strang made some makeshift steps out of a cooler and a storage box.

Jojo has since lost 10 pounds, started growing his coat back, and no longer needs steps to make it to his favorite places, Strang said, noting that he still needs to shed a couple more pounds.

“Jojo is incredibly social, greeting everyone who comes to the door, and will often smother himself over anyone who sits in a place he jumps onto.

“With the weight loss, Jojo went from hobbling around the house to now having a tremendous appetite for playtime,” he said.

Jojo also enjoys an occasional walk on the leash.

“It became apparent to the people around me that JoJo had found his furrever home long before I accepted it, as the number of Instagram posts featuring him grew and I became attached to the giant furball,” Strang wrote.

“Over the months he has trained me well to turn on the electric blanket for him on cold days and to keep his favorite sunning spot free to lounge on.”

On Dec. 18, the couple who adopted Sunny from Pima Animal Care Center celebrated her rebirth — the first six months of their dog’s vibrant new life.

Since bringing her home they have lavished the young shepherd mix with attention and love, discovering that Sunny lives to fetch tennis balls. She puts herself to bed at 7:31 p.m. every night, talks in her sleep and gets along with the couple’s three rescued cats.

She has taken two road trips and 10 weeks of obedience training. She has a pile of toys she can retrieve by name — knowing the difference, for example, between a cuddly flapjack and a bone.

All they know about her previous life is that it nearly ended May 12.

A 911 caller reported finding a dog hanging

from a tree by her jaw near Kino Stadium. The case drew international attention and prompted an outpouring of financial support for PACC— nearly $25,000.

Sunny had multiple injuries to her muzzle as well as brain trauma that required intensive veterinary care, costing more than $1,500. Jennifer Wilcox, PACC’s director of veterinary services, cared for the young dog in her own home for several days. Sunny spent the rest of her recovery in a foster home.

The retired teacher called PACC the day she heard about the rescue, offering to adopt Sunny sight unseen. She continued to call PACC weekly throughout the dog’s recovery. The couple’s previous dog had died at age 18 a year earlier, and they were ready to share their lives.

Because no suspects have been identified in Sunny’s abuse case, the couple asked to remain anonymous.

It is beyond them how people can be so evil, she said. But Sunny’s rescue has also shown how good people can be, she said, noting the increased donations to help others at PACC.

“She’s a sweet dog, and she’s extremely smart. We’ve got this eye-to-eye thing going on — we can read each other’s minds,” she said.

“She is just the love of our lives.”