It was a Saturday afternoon in December and the Petco on Ford Parkway in St. Paul was busy with shoppers coming and going, some of them accompanied by dogs wearing holiday sweaters.

At the center of the store, enticing customers to pause, was a gaggle of six puppies from three litters, up for adoption through Pooches United with People (PUP).

“Where’s their mom?” asked a volunteer about two of the puppies.

“She’s in my basement,” said PUP founder Jeanne Weigum. “It’s a good story and a bad story.”

“Most are,” said the volunteer.

True, and this one is our Christmas story.

Jeanne

Jeanne Weigum gives treats to her dogs in the backyard of her home in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. The St. Paul City Council declared Dec. 13, 2023, as “Jeanne Weigum Day” in honor of her volunteerism, which includes rescue dog work. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

If anyone in St. Paul has a big enough heart to rescue dogs, it’s Weigum, who at 80 is still volunteering on several fronts.

It was a year ago that the St. Paul City Council voted to declare Dec. 13, 2023, as “Jeanne Weigum Day” in honor of her volunteer work, which includes serving as the president of the Association for Non-Smokers-MN. She has also fought against billboards and planted ornamental gardens, spending decades working to improve the city where she lives.

The city council’s resolution called her the “grande dame of advocacy and community building in St. Paul … and beyond for the past 50-plus years.”

Weigum’s work with animals is rooted in both St. Paul and western South Dakota, where she grew up.

“I still have a home in Mobridge,” she said of her hometown.

While Weigum started volunteering locally with the Animal Humane Society and then Second Chance Animal Rescue, she also wanted to help in South Dakota, especially alongside her neighbors from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

“I was connected to Judy White Bull of Wamakaskan Onsaka, which in Lakota loosely translates to ‘animals in need,’” she said.

While her friend has since passed away, South Dakota is still Weigum’s focus for helping animals and the people who love them. Working with locals, Pooches United with People coordinates wellness clinics, animal rescues and more.

It was one such local who saved a dog called Lola.

Lola

Patti Prell, volunteer with Pooches United for People, tries to coax a shy Lola to eat from her hand in her friend Jeanne Weigum’s backyard in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Weigum emailed the Pioneer Press about a dog from South Dakota on Nov. 30.

“I have a pooch that I think you and your readers might find interesting to learn about and follow,” she wrote.

It was Lola.

“Lola was abandoned by her family in a 300-person town,” Weigum explained.

Rudy Little Shield of Mobridge, a volunteer with PUP, was familiar with the young dog, a mutt with floppy ears and a reserved disposition.

“I first saw her as a little pup. We vaccinated her along with a couple other ones,” Little Shield recalled in a phone interview. “I knew Lola’s family, but they ended up moving. I don’t know why they left her, I just knew she didn’t have anybody. She was always running around — I don’t think she stayed anywhere.”

“Then, as nature would have it,” Weigum said, “she got pregnant.”

“A friend called,” Little Shield said. “She said, ‘Can you come check on this dog?’”

It was Lola, and she was having her puppies outside of the friend’s house.

“She had dug a little hole right where the vent comes out to the dryer, maybe because it was warm there,” Little Shield said.

“When she started to deliver there was literally no manger and no room in the inn,” Weigum said. “She started having her puppies out in the open.”

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Little Shield brought Lola and her litter a dog house for shelter, a protected space away from other dogs and curious children, but Lola quickly disappeared.

“And then, about a week later, my sister called me,” he said. “She said, ‘There’s a dog under my porch and it has puppies.”

It was Lola, again. Unfortunately, only five of her nine puppies had survived.

This time, Little Shield was able to get Lola into a kennel with the help of pieces of chicken.

Soon, Lola and four of the surviving pups were on their way to St. Paul with PUP, where our story continues.

“I just hope they get a home,” Little Shield said.

The fifth pup already found a home — with Little Shield.

A new life

Puppies Stash and Shirley frolic in Jeanne Weigum’s back yard in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Temperatures were falling in St. Paul on Dec. 10, but Lola and her puppies didn’t seem to notice as they romped around Weigum’s backyard.

“Look how happy she is,” Weigum observed of Lola.

It’s a big change, having shelter and food and companionship.

“She has gained weight and her coat is no longer dull and rough but beautifully shiny,” Weigum says.

There are still challenges, though.

“She is learning to associate treats with hands and is starting to like human company at least a wee bit,” says Weigum.

With her puppies weaned and three of them adopted, Lola has been placed in foster care with Katie Holmes of Minneapolis, a new volunteer.

“I was at Petco during their adopt-a-puppy event and chatting with somebody there,” Holmes said. “I said, ‘I’m just looking, I can’t take on the financial responsibility of a puppy right now.’ They said, ‘The mom of some of the puppies is going to need a foster, do you want to meet her?’ Let’s go drive over to Jeanne’s house.’ So we did and when I saw Lola’s stupidly large ears and her sweetness, I just kind of fell in love.”

So far, Holmes has learned that Lola loves car rides but does not love being left home alone. She is also willing to tag along to Holmes’ dog-friendly office, where she has made a friend, a dog/mentor named Mishka. Back at her foster home, she enjoys sleeping on a futon and tolerates Holmes’ cat.

After a “chill” Christmas with Holmes, there’s work to be done before Lola is ready for adoption.

“The foster will work on socializing and desensitizing to the frightening things from the past,” Weigum says. “We are at the middle of this story, with much yet to come.”

Joy

Sara Janssen and her family were reeling this fall after losing both of their dogs in the span of a week: Bella was 15 years old, but Frida — adopted through PUP — died at age five from a rare autoimmune inflammatory disease.

“Jeanne was the first person I called,” Janssen said after Frida’s death. “I hadn’t spoken to her since I adopted Frida, but I needed to talk to her. She is such a warm and loving person, representing all the best things about the adoption and rescue community.”

Weigum knew what Janssen needed: She needed to cuddle some puppies; she needed to hold new life in her hands.

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That’s just what she did, after Weigum brought Lola and her puppies 400 miles from South Dakota to St. Paul.

Soon, one of those puppies — Cricket — was driving a few more blocks, to Janssen’s home.

“If there are people out there like myself, people who have lost a pet who left a hole in their heart and they don’t know where to turn to regain what their heart is missing, what I want to share is how it felt when Cricket was in my lap as we drove the four blocks home from Jeanne’s.

“The joy that comes from having a puppy next to you,” Janssen says, “it’s an unadulterated joy you regain that day.”

A joy that feels like Christmas.

PUP adoption event

Two of Lola’s puppies, Stash and Shirley, are available for adoption and still waiting for homes. Learn more about them at https://pupmn.org/.

The puppies will attend a Pooches United with People adoption event from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3 at Arbeiter Brewing, 3038 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis.

Follow updates about Lola in foster care on PUP’s Facebook page at facebook.com/PUP.MN).