We were lucky to catch up with Kristyna Lovell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kristyna, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

PugHearts of Houston have been in existence and saving pugs since 2007 but none of those years prepared us for what we faced in these last two.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when people started spending more time at home and benefiting from flexible schedules, many chose to get a dog. However, not all were prepared for the commitment. The massive dump started towards the end of 2021 but really picked up in summer of 2022 and sadly hasn’t slowed down.

Not only are we getting dogs people could no longer care for, we are also getting dogs from breeders who temporarily scaled up to cover covid demand and now no longer have a need for as many breeding pairs.

It may be surprising to people that there are so many pugs in rescue but the statistics for 2022 were a shocking total of 441 new intakes costing over 650K in vet care. At any given time, there are over 140 pugs in our care so the need for foster homes is at an all time high.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

PugHearts of Houston Pug Rescue is a true 501(c)(3) non-profit charity founded in the Houston area by dedicated pug owners and lovers. Our mission is the rescue, rehabilitation and permanent placement of needy pugs into loving homes.

We do not operate out of a facility but out of a network of foster homes spanning from the Woodlands all the way to Clear Lake. This allows us to evaluate every one of our dogs in a home environment and help place them with families best suited for their personality and energy level.

PugHearts is especially dedicated to provide exceptional medical care. Besides the standard procedures such as heartworm treatments, spay and neuter surgeries or vaccinations, we routinely cover specialized surgeries to improve the dogs’ breathing.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One of the unique things about PugHearts is that we take in dogs in any condition and we mean it. If they are at death’s doorstep, we still take them, treat them and make sure they are loved in the end, This story illustrates it, though in this particular case, the dog shocked us all…

I first found out about Grayson from a cryptic message at the end of October. All it said was that there is an extremely sick Frenchie in a shelter scheduled for euthanasia today that we were trying to pull him out and whether I would foster to which I said of course. It was exactly 3 days later when I got a call from the director of the rescue. Grayson made it to our vet and his evaluation was not good. He had a left sided failure caused by heartworms, a completely preventable condition, and he was given a week to live. I felt like I couldn’t breathe but I also knew this dog needed to come here.

I didn’t sleep that night. I felt like there had to be more I could do for this dog and then it hit me – Grayson is dying and he never got to experience anything, clearly, we will do a bucket list for him. We took him to the beach where he tried to chase the seagulls even though he could barely walk, to a ranch where he got kissed by a wild pony, on a convertible ride to get a puppachino, we cooked him steak, he met and peed on a giant tortoise, had a professional photoshoot and visited Bayou Bend Gardens. Before we knew it, a week turned into two, then three and before we knew it he had people overseas reaching out about his story. People were asking about heartworms and he was making a difference.

Just as we began hoping Grayson may celebrate New Year with us, an upper respiratory infection hit him with an incredible strength. For two weeks we fought as hard as we could for him hoping his appetite would pick back up knowing well this may be it. Grayson came to us beyond starved and he could barely pick up his tummy filled with fluid caused by his heart failure – if he ever got to the point where he couldn’t walk, we knew it would be unfair to keep it going. And then he finally had a good day, and one after that, he got excited about meal times and I felt like I could breathe again.

It is two years later now. Grayson got to eat Turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas, he has met endless friends and lived a life he should have had from the start. There is a book about his story in the works as we speak as well. None of this changes the fact that his condition is fatal. When his symptoms become severe enough to where he can’t enjoy his life, we will be there to hold him as he crosses over. But it will not be today.

This is a story of a rescue taking in a dog that will never make it out. A dog that never stood a chance but a dog whose life has been turned around because the rescue stepped in. His story could have ended in that shelter but it did not.

How did you build your audience on social media?

PugHearts initially started with just a facebook group. Having a group allowed people to post updates on dogs they adopted but also to ask questions. This is one of the core functions of the rescue – to help and educate the community whether they adopted from us or not and in order to fulfill that part of our mission, we have to be reachable.

As the number of users on Instagram grew, we decided it was vital we have a presence there as well. In optimizing all the settings, we discovered we could easily connect it to a facebook page where all things would get cross posted without any additional time needed. These posts are from our volunteers only and showcase predominantly foser dogs in our care.

Finally, we started having some fun with Tik Tok to help spread the awareness about the rescue.

The main recommendation would be to be reachable on whatever platform you choose. People appreciate the interaction which in turn increases the engagement on your posts and your overall visibility on said platform.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pughearts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pughearts/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PugHeartsOfHouston
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/pughearts
• Other: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pugheartspugrescue