Seventeen puppies abandoned in a ditch last month saw a much better side of the human race Monday.
The puppies were made available for adoption at Paws & Claws pet shelter Monday, and the shelter was inundated with people who had seen news stories about them and wanted to help.
By the end of the day, almost all the border collie-Australian shepherd mixes had been adopted, said Tanya Johnson, acting shelter manager.
"The story pulled at their heartstrings a little bit," Johnson said of the many who called and visited the shelter. People came from throughout the Rochester area, as well as from the Twin Cities and Wisconsin.
There were two litters — one of them three months old, the other four months old.
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The 17 puppies — skinny, and infested with burrs, ticks and fleas — were found by a farmer in a ditch near Stewartville. It remains a mystery as to who dumped them there.The puppies at first had fleas and worms, but they were treated and got their first puppy shots, Johnson said.
The shelter is happy that people stepped up, because with the puppies it had nearly 50 dogs, which was many more than usual.
"We have never gotten that many puppies at once," Johnson said.
Celeste and Dan Seidler came from Hudson, Wis., came to Paws and Claws on Monday after seeing the story about the abandoned puppies on WCCO-TV news. They had been looking for Australian shepherd dogs, and these seemed perfect.
They adopted two — a boy named Matrix and a girl named Martini. "We just couldn't decide; we thought they were both so perfect, so we said 'what the heck, let's just get them both," Celeste said.
"It felt like it was so perfect — we had been searching and searching," she said.
