Minnesota animal rescue takes in puppies found abandoned on Kentucky mountainside

A litter of puppies found in the Appalachian Mountains is now looking for a nice, warm home in Minnesota.

Lexis Noelle helps animals in need. She got a tip and immediately went to rescue the 10 puppies from a Kentucky mountainside.

"We just waited until we heard something and we heard the leaves rustle and all of a sudden, these little puppies came running down the hill," she said.

The puppies were in bad shape; they were dehydrated and extremely malnourished. 

"We sat in the bathtub until 12 in the morning, taking fleas and ticks off them," Noelle said. "Hundreds of fleas and ticks on them."

The puppies would not have lasted long in the wild.

"That area has so many coyotes and predators; there's no way they would have made it," Noelle said.

Noelle searched for rescues that would take the litter in for more care. That's when she found Minnesota-based Safe Hands Rescue.

"They started reaching out for help and Safe Hands Rescue is boots on the ground in southeastern Kentucky; we have a rescue center there," Heather Rende, a Safe Hands Rescue volunteer, said. "We transported them last week to their foster homes in beautiful Minnesota."

Now, after weeks of treatment, the puppies are looking for homes.

While these puppies' story has a happy ending, Noelle and Rende know just how bad it could have been.

"It's surprising just how many of these stories we tell every week," Rende said. "It couldn't be anything other than someone just getting rid of a litter."

"Reach out to people; people are willing to hold them. Don't resort to desperate things like that; there's no need for that," Noelle said.