Sadie Mae, a stray dog who showed up near Katie Simon's front porch in Jamestown, Tennessee, in mid-July with her six puppies. Photo / Katie Simon, The Washington Post
Katie Simon was sitting on her porch in Jamestown, Tennessee, when she spotted a dog in the nearby woods with something trailing closely behind.
“It was this little white thing bouncing up and down through the grass,” said Simon, who lives on an 18ha property.
As the dog approached, she realised it was a stray with a tiny tan-and-white puppy. Simon and her husband – who have five dogs of their own – brought the dog and her pup inside to clean and feed them.
The adult dog was in bad shape, Simon said, as her nails were overgrown, her paw pads were cracked and she was very skinny. She also cowered at one point.
“Obviously, someone had hurt her before,” said Simon, adding that she was not wearing a collar.
Simon posted on social media to see if an owner was looking for them, but nobody came forward.
The following day, in mid-July, the dog – whom they called “Mama” – was roaming the Simons’ property, and resurfaced with three more puppies.
“We immediately bathed them, pulled the ticks out of their ears,” Simon said.
The next day, it happened again with Mama bringing two more puppies, for a total of six. They looked to be about a month old.
“They had tiny little teeth and were so hungry,” Simon said. “Every day, it was like more puppies and more puppies.”
It seemed like a life-and-death situation for the pups.
“We knew we had to stop and do this because they wouldn’t make it otherwise,” Simon said. “They needed us.”
The Simons set up a pen for the puppies to play in and contacted the local rescue, Best Friends Sanctuary, to let them know about the seven dogs.
The rescue provided dewormer, food and antibiotics, but could not take all the pups.
“They didn’t have room,” Simon said.
She and her husband agreed to look after the six puppies and Mama for three weeks, until the rescue was able to bring them into their care and place them for adoption.
They grew fond of the dogs, especially Mama.
“She was just so kind to us,” Simon said.
The Simons’ daughter, Ashlee Simon, who is in the process of moving to Indiana, visited her parents and the pups on August 5 to see if she might want to adopt Mama.
“I met her and was like, ‘immediately yes,’” said Ashlee Simon, 32. “She is really smiley, she’s a big tail wagger.”
Ashlee Simon posted on social media to let her friends and family know about her new dog, whom she named “Sadie Mae”. She thought only her 80 followers would see it.
“Meet Sadie Mae!” she wrote on Threads, explaining how she got the dog.
“She’s had a few litters, is probably between 2-4 years old, and clearly wasn’t ever allowed in anyone’s house before. She’s the sweetest dog, and she has hit the jackpot finding a childless millennial who is now going to spoil her for the rest of forever.”
“SINKWAD life, here I come!!,” she wrote using the acronym for “single income no kids with a dog”.
To Ashlee Simon’s shock and delight, the post took off with thousands of likes and comments. The replies turned into a cascade of adorable, happy dog photos accompanied by their rescue backstories.
“My boy was found living under a dumpster as a puppy,” wrote someone with a photo of a smiling, pointy-eared dog.
“Meet Winslow! They found him on the freeway, blind in one eye, underweight and rife with fleas,” wrote another, posting a photo of a comfortable Winslow on a couch.
“This dog was found in a field along a highway in Missouri,” someone posted, with a photo of a furry, content pooch by the ocean.
Another person, Marianne Richardson, stumbled on Ashlee Simon’s thread and wrote about her dog, Winnie, who was also rescued while pregnant.
“My pregnant girl was rescued from being tied up outside. She gave birth to 10!!” Richardson wrote.
“I truly appreciated that she, too, was devoting this love to a mama dog that deserved it so much,” Richardson said of Ashlee Simon, in a phone interview with the Washington Post.
Karen Adcock also told her story on Simon’s thread. She was hiking in the mountains of North Carolina in 2018 when she found a sick, pregnant dog. Adcock rescued her and named her “Nandi”.
“She has been a light in my world,” said Adcock, who lives in Worcester County, Maryland.
Adcock said she was heartened to read Ashlee Simon’s story, and the hundreds of others on the post.
“I can’t imagine reading that and not having it touch you in some way,” she said. “I hope her story inspires a lot of people who might not have otherwise thought about giving a neglected dog a chance.”
Ashlee Simon agreed. While she never expected her post to reach so many people, she’s glad it did.
“Sadie’s story is great, but I’m so glad that people also gave us glimpses into their own experiences,” she said. “We all needed this happy moment of humanity.”