A call went in to animal control about a tiny puppy that had wandered into a yard. The people who called in said that she looked as though she had been burned, as she had massive patches of her fur missing.
When Fulton County Animal Service picked up the dog, they determined that she was only about 5 to 6 weeks old. She weighed a mere 4 pounds (approx. 2 kg). While the pup, which they named Pixie Princess, certainly didn’t look her best, foster coordinator Daphne Bragg saw the beauty within. “You are coming with me!” she recalled thinking after first meeting Pixie.
Despite having already adopted four homeless dogs, Bragg couldn’t say no to this little pup in need. While others saw a burnt puppy, Bragg knew that Pixie simply had demodectic mange, a condition that is treatable. Over the next six weeks, she would be with little Pixie every step of the way.
Mange is an inflammatory disease caused by mites, which leads to skin sores, infected skin, and hair loss of the kind that Pixie showed. “She had been scratching to the point where she did have scabs and sores,” Bragg said in a video published online by The Dodo. When she first arrived at Bragg’s house, a medicated bath was the first order of business. “She was so little, she got her baths in my kitchen sink,” the dog’s carer said.
While Pixie’s health was getting better as she got regular food, baths, and love, her infected skin and fur still needed to come out before she could start to really show some growth. Meanwhile, she was so young that it was important for Pixie to develop some basic socializing skills that would make her adoptable once her fur grew back.
Eliot took a lot of love and medical attention to get back in shape. He had a deformity that made his leg bow, requiring him to have two tiny casts that helped straighten them out. One of Bragg’s other rescues, Chicken Wing, who also had a rough start, took Eliot’s training on.
When the time came for Eliot to be adopted, Bragg decided the best place for him was with her. “Seeing the way that my dogs act to him, they’re not the biggest fans of new dogs coming into their home,” she explained. “So the fact that they bonded with him so quickly, I just kind of knew he was the one.”
Whatever the reason was, it was Eliot, the newest arrival in Bragg’s dog pack, who took on the job of showing Pixie the ropes. “They played with each other. She learned social cues from him,” said the owner. “Her puppy started coming out.” While the puppy had had a rather difficult start in life, she didn’t seem at all scarred by it. Bragg noted that “she had no idea she was smaller than the others. She had no fear.”
As Pixie grew more affectionate and outgoing day by day, there was something else growing as well. “She was like a little peach fuzz puppy,” Bragg joked. “I think at about a month we could really tell the difference that she was on her way to having that full beautiful coat.”
At about six weeks, Bragg felt that Pixie was ready to find her forever home. Having seen her grow and heal so much, it was difficult for her foster mom to say goodbye. “But being able to watch that transformation, really makes fostering worth it,” she said. The shelter was able to find the “perfect family” for Pixie.
Pixie has come a long way. For Bragg, that’s what fostering is all about and what keeps her going each time another abandoned pup comes her way.
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