Margarita, a puppy mill  survivor, has found her person and her forever home and she’s not about to let them go.

“She follows me around the house and wherever I sit, she’s on my lap,” says Sally Rothenberg, Margarita’s adopter.

And at night, she’s by Rothenberg’s side too. Her first night, the first week in August after Rothenberg and her husband met Margarita at the Best Friends sanctuary, “I put her on a dog bed on the floor and she stayed there,” she says. “The second night, she wanted on the bed, and she’s been a bed dog ever since. She sleeps on my side of the bed. She curls up at my back and stays there all night.”

Margarita joined four other dogs in the Rothenberg’s Minneapolis home. Had Rothenberg not known Margarita’s background—that she’d lived her first few years as a breeding dog in a cramped wire cage—she would have had no idea life had not been good. “It was amazing, because she knew instantly how to be a house dog,” Rothenberg says. “She has done really well. She’s perfectly housetrained and has been from the first day.”

Margarita also took to treats and chewies immediately. “She loves her chewies. She carries them around with her,” she says.

The only signs of insecurity are when Rothenberg leaves their home. “She cries when I leave, then she calms down pretty quickly,” she says.

She has good reason to be anxious. Margarita, along with 37 other mostly small dogs, arrived at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in April and May as part of a multi-group effort to rescue more than 200 dogs from Midwest commercial breeders.

The rescue and transport, dubbed Pup My Ride, is part of Best Friends' Puppies Aren’t Products ongoing campaign. The national campaign also targets the end retail user of mill-bred dogs through peaceful and educational demonstrations at puppy stores.

Margarita, who was in the worst physical condition than the other dogs, had surgery to repair a hernia that a Best Friends veterinarian said most likely occurred during puppy birth, causing her abdominal wall to rupture.

While at the sanctuary, Margarita, too scared to walk on a leash outside but always eager to be carried or held, won the hearts of the caregivers and trainers who cared for and spent time with her. “She is super sweet and wants to spend as much time with people as possible,” trainer Whitney Jones said at the time.

The TLC Margarita received while at the sanctuary shows, despite the challenges she faced after she was rescued. “Margarita has adapted really well,” Rothenberg points out.

And, make no mistake, this little Chihuahua has very much become a mama’s girl. “She’s basically my dog and not my husband’s,” Rothenberg says. “She sat on my lap traveling in southern Utah for five days before we flew home. I think that’s what did it.”

Best of all, she says, Margarita is enjoying her new canine family. “We have a really long yard, and she races around the back yard. She plays chase-and-roll with our other dogs and started playing with them almost immediately. She’s got a lot of spirit.”

To view video of Margarita’s adoption, click here.
 

How  You Can Help

• Best Friends is currently planning additonal Pup My Ride transports to rescue unwanted dogs from commercial breeding kennels and deliver them to shelters where they can find homes. 

• Please help fund more Pup My Ride resuces by donating to the Puppies Aren’t Products campaign.

• To learn more about the Pup My Ride program, click here.

Photos by Molly Wald, Best Friends’ photographer.