The Pedigree Foundation Grant

The Pedigree Brand believes that every dog deserves a loving home.  To ensure the brand was maximizing its efforts to help four-legged friends in need, they created The Pedigree Foundation.  The Pedigree Foundation is a philanthropic organization dedicated to providing grants to support other programs that help make life better for homeless dogs.  WestieMed is pleased to announce it received a grant from The Pedigree Foundation in November 2009.

WestieMed wishes to express its thanks and gratitude to The Pedigree Foundation for this support.  This grant enabled WestieMed to help restore Sugar to good health, and help her find a new home.

Sugar

At the start of 2009, Sugar had everything a Westie could want – a human companion whom she loved and who loved her, a warm place to lay her creaky bones at night, plenty of food to eat and time to play or sleep as the mood struck her.  And then suddenly it all changed…

First, a spring flood took away her home in Olympia, WA. Sugar’s mom struggled to recover from the devastation, but soon found that she couldn’t. So within a few months, Sugar and her mom were destitute and living in a car. No longer able to feed or care for her little 8-year-old Westie, the only thing Sugar’s mom could do for her now was to take her to the shelter in Olympia and hope that somewhere out there, someone would want a little Westie with lots of strikes against her.

Luckily for Sugar, the shelter contacted a volunteer with Seattle Westie Rescue. Sugar was taken from the shelter and her rescuer set about getting her the veterinary care she needed.  But with heart arrhythmia, a heart murmur, arthritis in both back legs and her hip, a bad disc in her spine, an infection in her ears and then E. coli, it wasn’t long before Sugar’s vet bills topped $1,800.

It was then Seattle Westie Rescue turned to WestieMed for help… and WestieMed responded.

WestieMed helped Sugar get the veterinary care she needed. But Sugar’s prognosis remains iffy, and for months she still wasn’t feeling all that well. She demonstrated this by being cranky, stubborn, aloof and not the least bit interested in human contact. Not surprising then that she ran through a series of foster homes, which lasted from a scarce few days to a stressful week or two.

So after five long months of being prodded, poked and bounced around from home to home, Sugar was still looking for a place to call her own.

Ultimately, both Sugar’s luck and attitude improved. She found a home with a family who had adopted two Scotties and a Westie from Seattle Westie Rescue over the years, and who know enough about the terrier temperament to give her space and time to fit in, and to laugh at her antics.

Today, thanks to WestieMed and the Pedigree Foundation, Sugar has found a home of her own -- and a reason , finally, to be as sweet as her namesake.  Read more about Sugar.