A Couple Rescued Three "Worn Out" Great Pyrenees Puppies They Found In The Wilderness And It's A Lot

The dogs had been living in and surviving off a sheep's carcass.

So, by now you've probably read some pretty "aw"-inducing dog search and rescue stories. Welp. Sit down.

Kat Perry and Corey Holt were snowmobiling through the Utah backcountry on Saturday when they spotted a lone, muddy Great Pyrenees standing in the snow. And it was "obvious" she had puppies.

"She was miles away from any road just walking along," Perry told BuzzFeed News, adding that she was "super skinny."

So the next day, armed with a lot of dog food and a crate, the couple returned to the remote Ant Flat park area near Monte Cristo.

The 43-year-old said they eventually found the mom and three puppies living in a gnawed-out sheep carcass, down on the side of a creek road and "completely exposed."

Cellphone video shows her coaxing the "mama dog" with handfuls of food.

"She'd been sprayed by a skunk, so it was obvious that at one point she had tried to eat that," Perry said.

When they discovered the puppies, she said they were thin, wet, shivering, and like little balls of ice.

The carcass they were curled up in was nothing but thin bone.

"I mean, there was nothing left on that," Perry said. "It was completely depleted of meat for quite awhile and only had a little bit of wool on it."

Luckily, the Weber County Sheriff's Office's search and rescue team was in the area and able to help bring the puppies off the mountain using a sleigh. Their mom, though, was too skittish and didn't trust the rescuers, so the group made the tough decision to leave her and try to come back the next day.

“We didn’t have a leash. We didn’t have a rope or anything, so we decided the best thing was get these guys out first and then go back in and try to get her,” Holt, Perry's boyfriend, told Fox 13 in an interview.

In a message to BuzzFeed News, Weber County Search and Rescue Lt. Mark Horton said the pups were "worn out" and looked like they had been surviving on the dead sheep for some time.

The rescuers left behind 20 pounds of dog food and made plans to return the next day to keep looking. In the past few days, Perry and officials said that a slew of groups have been diligently scouring the area for the mom.

"We're going to find her," she said.

Horton added that the Ant Flat area is popular for guarding sheep and that authorities don't believe the dogs were intentionally abandoned.

"We believe the mother belonged to a sheep herder and may have left camp to have the pups," he said. "At that time the sheep herder may have left to get his flock off the mountain and may not have had a whole lot of time to go look for mom or the pups."

However, Perry said that this happens more often than people might expect. She rescued one of her dogs, a border collie, after herders left him injured on a nearby mountain. The Great Pyrenees Rescue Montana says it sees these dogs left behind once herds are moved several times a year.

"Not uncommon for herders to leave behind these dogs," Perry said. "People think they're disposable."

Perry added that mother's puppies, two boys and a girl about 7 weeks old, are recovering and "eating everything in sight." The survivors are likely from a much larger litter of 7 to 10 puppies, she said, the rest of whom didn't make it.

"Around Halloween, which is when they were born, it got really cold here, like 20 below zero," she said. "They would have been a week old. I'm sure they froze to death."

After having the puppies rolling across her rugs and following her around for nearly a week, she's decided to adopt one and name him Polar, or maybe Rowdy.

And, apparently, everyone on the internet has tried to adopt the other two fluffers.

"At this time Great Pyrenees Rescue, Montana is not accepting anymore applications for the adoption of these three puppies due to the overwhelming response," the sheriff's office wrote on Facebook.

BUT you can still melt over all the content that Perry and other rescuers have been posting.

Because oh my god 😭😭😭

While this rescue was unique, Horton said he and his team have saved lost and stranded doggos from other tough situations in the area.

"We did save a dog from a car that had gone into a river at the beginning of the summer," he said. "A few years ago we saved a dog that had fallen down a mine shaft. It's not normally something we do, but if it's a situation where we can help, we are happy to help."

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