Just a few months ago, Popeye and Sweetpea were abused and starving. Since then, the Boxer/American bulldog mixes were rescused by the city-owned Mission Viejo Animal Services Center and the pets' previous owners in South Los Angeles face animal-abuse charges.
And today, Popeye and Sweetpea have been adopted by a couple that plans to smother them with love.
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The South County shelter had responded to a call for help from animal control officials in LA. Popeye weighed 44 pounds and Sweetpea 37 pounds–about half of what each should have weighed–when they arrived in Mission Viejo.
Despite what the dogs were put through, they were always good-natured around staff members, according to the center.
Here's how The Dawg Dispatch, the site run by Dedicated Animal Welfare Group, describes Popeye and Sweetpea's turnaround:
It
is hard to imagine that these big dogs got such poor care they were
nearly starved to death. Only a few months ago, each were down to only
30 pounds. They were emaciated! While the prosecution ended in
punishment for the owner and the permanent removal of the dogs from that
home, in order for them to find a great new home they needed to be
rescued. The MV shelter agreed to take them and life changed for the
better in an instant for this pair. Volunteers loved watching these
enormous dogs frolicking in the play yard. They were not at the shelter
long when their new family fell in love. At first the couple thought
maybe they would take just one but once they saw them playing together,
there was no question these dogs needed to stay together. We are
thrilled that Popeye and Sweet Pea have an entirely new life now and we
look forward to updates which we expect to get regularly.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.