Karen became a volunteer after she adopted from PDWRA over 4 years ago. She has a revolving door! During this time, she has fostered 18 pugs, adopted 2 and been a failed fosterer on 3 occasions! She also transports and home checks for us.
Karen has a heart of gold and finds it so difficult to part with any of her foster pugs, each time saying “I don’t know if I can part with this one!”. But she does, she loves helping them on their way to their future homes, seeing them through any healthcare management, but just naturally, can’t help falling in love at the same time.
The biggest struggle Karen has had, was parting with Chester, who was a very naughty pug. Our Area Coordinator remembers getting a call from Karen to say Chester has jumped over the baby gate, we had to quickly order a taller one to stop him getting out. Although Chester was naughty, he soon won a special place in Karen’s heart. When the time came for Chester to go to his new home she was devastated. It was such a relief when she contacted us a little later to say, “I’m ready for another one now!”.
Karen truly loves and cares for pugs as all our volunteers do, and we couldn’t be without her in our family!
Peter, regularly transports pugs between their destinations, on the road to their forever, loving homes. He’s one of those diamonds who never says no. He knows we wouldn’t ask if there were others available to suit the collection or delivery destinations and for the dates needed.
Peter’s been known to make multiple trips in a week or to take a pug cross-counties to a specialist vet consultation or procedure. He and his wife Alison have also fostered pairs, long-term, seeing them through surgeries and after-care. They patiently attend all the vet visits reporting back to their PDWRA Area Coordinator who supports them throughout. Peter says “It’s why we foster them though, so that they are comfortable until their perfect home is found”.
One pug that really stole Peters’ heart, was Dillon. He will remain with him forever now. A cheeky, gorgeous boy seen here, with a few ailments as he ages. He also has to ‘tolerate’ all the visiting fosters which he takes in his stride. They have become extra-close during lockdown.
Peter has transported so many pugs in his time volunteering. His busiest period was probably the last 6 months of 2019 when he recalls driving around 20 pugs. In one town that only had 2 car parks, it was amusing when Peter and the person he was delivering a pug to, were waiting for each other in different ones!
Peter has got to know our other regular fosterers pretty well, familiar with their foster pugs’ stories and journeys to their forever homes. Our volunteers’ teamwork is amazing, and we couldn’t do what we do, without those like Peter, very much at the heart of our extended PDWRA family.
A chance, every year, 1 – 7 June, to say Thank You for the fantastic contribution volunteers make to their causes. The PDWRA couldn’t do what we do without them, and this week we will recognise and thank, some special individuals who are testament to those who go above and beyond!
Rachel is our outstanding, committed, volunteer fundraising co-ordinator who can turn anything into a donation for our pugs. She has been running the PDWRA Mega Auction for Pugs in Need, every day of each year with an occasional break for overseas holidays before the pandemic. Even then she visited Rescue centres that she contributes to.
From selling raffle tickets for high-value donated branded goods to auctioning hand-made greeting cards or themed, knitted pugs that can achieve £80 each, she has raised anything up to 10,000 totals each month! This is invaluable towards our ever-increasing vet costs. She has a small team of helpers, Catherine, Mark and Tracey plus Steve, her husband, who help to make everything happen smoothly, from storage, transportation or administration. Rachel can be found every morning at her local Post Office with all the prizes and goodies won by our enthusiastic bidders, so they can receive them as promptly as possible.
Over the years Rachel has seen that we could attend as many dog events as possible, negotiating venues for free, organising transporting our stands or gazebo’s to where they need to be and rallying volunteers to represent our worthy cause. She has even run agility courses for competing pugs, always to help raise funds.
Rachel has such a ‘can do’ approach to anything she touches. She’s helped with emergency transportation and fostering while our rehomers coordinated those cases. She can’t help herself from getting involved. All for the luv of pugs!
Archie, was surrendered to PDWRA with his brother Benny, who we wrote about a few weeks ago. One of our volunteers Hannah, who also has pugs, fell in love with him from the moment she saw him at her local park with his foster Sue. She had seen them both through dentals, as well as Archie having to have a dreaded graft procedure from an ulcer. Sue already had an adopted PDWRA pug, Alfie, and as we often find, was considering adopting but couldn’t manage both of them. Archie was 11 years old and had ongoing and progressive healthcare needs that Hannah was willing to manage, so she jumped at the opportunity to discuss with us, giving him his forever home.
Hannah updates us:”I’m so happy to say our golden oldie Archie is settling in well. It was all a bit strange for him at first having two new brothers and one new sister in our home and for the first few weeks at night, he needed either me or hubby Joe, to lay with him whilst he settled, but we didn’t mind as we got extra snuggles with him!
His eye is healing now ulcer-free, however, unfortunately it was soon followed by an ulcer in his other eye! Thankfully, I spotted it straight away, knowing the signs, having been through it a few times with my other pugs, so got him to vets quickly. It was treated in the usual way with endless drops and was gone in one week ..thank goodness 😅
He’s getting on well with his new siblings and puts them in their place by doing what we call the death stare 😳 should he feel they need it, and especially if they’re in the spot where he wants to relax. Stevie our other PDWRA rescue took a bit more time learning to love Archie – simply because he loves and craves all the attention and didn’t want to share his mum and dad with anyone else, let alone someone new! But he’s more than happy to let Archie lick his ears and get in bed with him now.
Like most pugs Archie absolutely loves his food and feels no shame about barking at 5:45am every morning to let us know he’s ready for his breakfast! There’s often a little gift waiting for us in the morning also, as he hasn’t got much awareness of his bowel functions, especially if he’s excited or when I pick him up.
It’s also so lovely that his brother Benny only lives a ten-minute walk from our house, which means they still get to see each other. We really did consider taking them both, but it would have been too much. And with our resident Stevie, I know how jealous he gets and how much attention the others need – it wouldn’t be fair to take that much attention away from each of them. All in all, we feel both Archie and Benny have landed on their paws and we adore our little snuggle monster!”.
Fred came to the UK from the Far East, with his original parents. Their family was expanding and they came to the very difficult decision to surrender him to PDWRA when they realised that they could no longer give him the attention he deserved. One of our adoptive families who were willing to foster him, went to collect him. All his belongings were ready outside, food, bedding, toys etc. and his Mum was too upset to say goodbye. It was absolutely heart-breaking for all concerned.
His fosterer Cheryl tells us, “Unfortunately, when Fred first arrived he did have a number of health issues that needed attending to. He’s such a beautiful boy and we knew we just couldn’t let him be adopted. We had to keep him. We knew he’d get a beautiful home but made the decision that he wasn’t going anywhere. Thankfully there was no argument from our Area Coordinator, Dee who placed our resident pug Mollie, with us 3 years ago. She knew we could give him a perfect forever home too. We just hadn’t been on the adoption waiting list as we hadn’t considered it, until Fred!
With lots of love and care, time and patience, a change of diet and medication, he blossomed. His skin became healthier and he’s so much happier living life to the full. Mollie, is half his size, but bosses him around which he just takes in his stride. He’s so laid back and nothing phrases him. The best things we ever did was to adopt Mollie and foster Fred.
We can’t thank our Area Coordinator Dee, and everyone within the PDWRA family, enough. They have been absolutely amazing and we are so blessed to have two beautiful pugs in our lives. Xx “
