As we countdown PACC's Top 10 saves of 2017 through Dec. 31, here is #7 Zoey.  Your support made happy endings such as Zoey possible. A generous donor has agreed to match contributions to PACC on a dollar-for-dollar basis up to $10,000.  So please donate today and double your impact.

Left to fend for herself, Zoey began her young life alone and afraid. She was abandoned in a mall parking lot, placed in the back of an unattended pickup truck during one of Tucson’s hottest months for more than an hour.

She had no water. No shelter. The only food that was left with her was just a few bits of old carne asada and chiles. The temperature that day reached 105. Lucky for Zoey, several people noticed that she was in distress and called for help.

Officers with the Tucson Police Department and PACC responded to the scene. Then the owner of the truck—Kim Scanlan—returned to her vehicle shocked at what she saw. 

"[The puppy] was so hot and she was curled up under the tool box trying to avoid the sun. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen," Scanlan said, who couldn’t take Zoey home with her but still wanted to help and made a donation to PACC.

Zoey was immediately placed in an air-conditioned truck kennel and brought back to PACC, where the medical team closely monitored her for signs of heat exhaustion.

With the all clear, a foster family took Zoey in and began adjusting her to life with a loving family. She has since been adopted by Shelia, who cites the excellent care of the foster family as the primary factor for Zoey’s smooth transition to her forever home—a foster family whom Zoey and Shelia continue to keep in contact with even though they now live in New Mexico.

This new beginning also called for a new name. Zoey—the small abandoned black puppy—is now Rosey, a name chosen to emphasize the rosy life she’ll have after such a traumatic start.

The helping hands she received—those initial mall-goers that stepped into action, the police and PACC officers, the PACC medical team, her foster family, and finally her new owner—is not lost on Rosey. In fact, she still sleeps with the stuffed bear that was given to her at PACC.

While still a rambunctious, high-energy puppy, Rosey is in the process of being trained to become a licensed and certified working therapy dog. One day she, too, will pay it forward and help those in need.