Happy Tails Dog Rescue(CHESTERFIELD, S.C.) — Miracle the dog’s backstory is truly a heroic one, and now she needs a home.
It’s believed Miracle, a pitbull mix, rescued her puppies in December from a factory fire in South Carolina, and was injured in the process.
“Apparently a passerby picked her up from the road and they knew she had been living in the abandoned factory because they saw her come and go,” Victoria McGonigal, owner of Dochas n Gra Animal Rescue and Sanctuary in Chesterfield, South Carolina, told ABC News. “The day she got picked up was the day the warehouse had a fire. They took her to animal control and realized she had a broken front left leg and knew she was still producing milk, so she had puppies somewhere.”
McGonigal said an animal control officer called the local fire department to see about returning to the factory to search for the puppies, but was told the area wasn’t safe. Four days passed before the officer was allowed to return, and as soon as she arrived with Miracle, McGonigal said the dog led her straight to the spot where she had left her babies.
“She apparently moved the puppies from the warehouse to the woods,” said McGonigal. “It was a little wooded area in a grove. She stuck them each in there, and they stayed there.”
True to her name, finding the puppies in the same spot, all together, seemed nothing short of a miracle.
The entire canine family was then taken to Dochas n Gra Animal Rescue for McGonigal to help nurse them back to health.
“They came here and stayed with me for three to four weeks,” she recalled. “They were done weaning on her and then they went up to Happy Tails.”
Happy Tails Dog Rescue in Smithtown, New York, is often where McGonigal sends her rescues after she’s gotten them healthy enough for adoption.
Miracle stayed in South Carolina a little longer because “when they X-rayed her left leg, they saw it was broken in her shoulder joint,” said McGonigal. The dog’s leg ultimately had to be amputated.
Once she was healthy enough to travel, she too made the trek up to Happy Tails in New York.
“I was a blubbering mess when I put her on transport,” McGonigal recalled. “You could tell she was so grateful for being found and being taken care of. She would jump in my lap and give me hugs.”
Miracle’s puppies are all in homes where they’ll most likely stay, but now Miracle is searching for a forever home, too.
“Miracle is being fostered with the intent to adopt,” the owner of Happy Tails, Anna Pancaldo, said. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed that all goes well this week. But if it doesn’t work we have about 40 people lined up for her.”
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