N.B. teens find box of puppies left in freezing cold; animals survive

FREDERICTON - Eight tiny puppies are alive thanks to two high school students out for a walk in the park Tuesday.
Megan Toth and Jasmine Crooks, both 17, were enjoying a day off from Leo Hayes High when they noticed a large plastic storage container in Odell Park.
They didn't think too much of their discovery until they heard a distinctive cry.
"We looked in it and there were eight little puppies," Crooks said. "They smelled really, really bad, like they had been in there for a long, long time. They didn't have frostbite."
Crooks said when she and her friend lifted the lid, all the puppies wanted to do was escape their plastic prison.
But the teens kept them inside the container, quickly transferred them to a car and then to a veterinarian, who advised they be taken to the Fredericton SPCA.
The puppies appear to be a German shepherd-lab mix.
Crooks said she's horrified that someone would leave them outside.
The temperature hovered around -15 C Tuesday afternoon, but it felt colder with the wind chill.
"I was just shocked that someone would be that cruel to leave all the puppies out there in that cold weather," said Crooks. "We didn't know what to do at first, so we just decided to take them with us."
Toth said there was no bedding in the bucket and the pups were left with nothing but their own body heat to keep them alive.
Stephanie Walsh, executive director of the Fredericton SPCA, said the puppies were in good shape.
"It does not appear they were out in the cold very long," she said. "They don't appear to be having any sign of frostbite or anything like that.
"We really don't know how long they were out. We are just very fortunate that these two women were able to find these puppies before it got ugly."