My twin sister has always struggled with depression and anxiety. She’s had a rough past few years, and after having to be institutionalized for severe self-harm, we knew we had to find some sort of solution. Something that she could put all of her thoughts into that wouldn’t stress her out or hurt her. We knew that she had always wanted a pug–all she would talk about was how much she wanted one, and how much she loved them, and so on and so forth–but we had never gotten her one, because we were told that pugs don’t do well with larger dogs (which we have two of).

Nevertheless, my mom went online to look at pugs and see if there was a rescue available. In her searching, she came across a little pug named Molly, who was said to be a seven-year-old “party pug.” My sister saw her pictures and fell in love–we knew we had to get her. So we drove half an hour to the shelter and when we picked her up, she was immediately drawn to my sister. She was all over her, kissing her and nuzzling her. She sat on her lap on the entire car ride home.

It doesn’t stop there, though. After the first day of having her, we noticed that she was babying her right eye, and she was very thin. The vet said that she had a very bad ulcer on her eye which would require surgery. We took her to another veterinarian (a friend of the family) to get a second opinion, and found out that she also had a protein deficiency and an infection (and also, she was actually nine years old). The vet made her a special serum out of her own blood to help her eye, and gave her medicine, and she got all better without the surgery! Now she really IS our party pug, always running and playing ball, and she loves to snuggle. My sister has never been happier.

We saved Molly, and Molly saved our family. We love our party pug!  

– Mo Pruiett, Aiken, South Carolina