WAGS Rescue NZ

🧸❤️ TEDDIES FOR TINY HUMANS! ❤️🧸

One donation. Two lots of good. 🐾

WAGS has somehow found ourselves with a LOT of gorgeous teddy bears, thanks to our wonderful friends at Support Your Local Rescue! 😂🧸

And rather than simply finding them new homes, we thought… why not make them do something pretty special along the way?

So we’ve teamed up with THREE fantastic local daycare centres and now we need YOUR help to fill them with teddies!

🥁🥁🥁 MEET OUR THREE TEDDY RECIPIENTS!

🧸 Aroha Kids Early Learning Kumeu

🧸 Kiddywinkles Huapai

🧸 Junior Junction Childcare

These three wonderful centres have put their hands up to be part of our Teddy Takeover, and now the fun begins!

HOW DOES IT WORK?

We’ve put together three gorgeous teddy bundles for you to choose from.

🧸 OPTION ONE — $50 DONATION
Our BIG, huge bundle of cuddly bears!

🧸 OPTION TWO — $30 DONATION
A gorgeous medium bundle of furry friends!

🧸 OPTION THREE — $15 DONATION
A sweet little bundle ready for tiny hands!

Every dollar donated goes towards helping the rescue dogs in WAGS’ care, while your chosen teddy bundle gets gifted to the daycare YOU nominate. ❤️

BUT HERE’S WHERE WE NEED YOU!

We don’t just want to give each daycare one bundle.

Oh nooooo! 😂

WE WANT TO ABSOLUTELY COVER THESE DAYCARES IN TEDDIES! 🧸🧸🧸

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a little friendly competition to see which daycare can build the biggest teddy mountain! 😉

🐾 HOW TO JOIN THE TEDDY TAKEOVER

1️⃣ Choose your teddy bundle $50, $30 or $15.

2️⃣ Make your donation using the bank details below.

3️⃣ Come back to THIS post and comment OPTION ONE, TWO or THREE, and TAG the daycare you want your teddy bundle delivered to!

4️⃣ Want to send more than one bundle? ABSOLUTELY! Just let us know how many you’re donating and which daycare gets them.

We’ll keep a running tally of the bundles donated to each centre and share updates as those teddy piles grow!

❤️ DONATION DETAILS

💰Account Name: Anthony Koenen (WAGS Rescue NZ funds held in trust)
💰Account Number: 38-9020-0185111-05
💰Reference: TEDDY + YOUR NAME

Please remember to comment below after donating so we know exactly where your teddy bundles are going!

🐾 WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Because rescue is about community

It’s about people helping people, people helping animals, and finding little ways to make the world a kinder place 🩷🩵

Your donation helps us feed, care for and provide veterinary treatment for the dogs who depend on WAGS.

And somewhere in a local daycare, a little person gets a new cuddly friend to love.

You help a rescue dog. 🐕

A child gets a new cuddly friend. 🧸

And a teddy gets a very important new job. ❤️

A huge thank you to Support Your Local Rescue for making this possible, and to our three wonderful daycares for joining in the fun.

Right, WAGS family…

LET THE GREAT TEDDY TAKEOVER BEGIN! 🎉🧸🐾

Why $1,300? 🤔🐾

Our amazing community already helped us fund an acoustic assessment, professional planning costs and the initial $4,500 Auckland Council processing deposit.

Council processing charges have now reached $5,800.75, leaving another $1,300.75 to find.

That's where our October challenge comes in. ❤️

Let's knock that $1,300 down together.

🐾 Support our Givealittle

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/wags-rescue-nz

🐾 $1,300. 26 DAYS. LET'S DO THIS! ❤️

This October, we're setting our WAGS community a challenge.

🎯 Help us raise $1,300!

We've come so far on our resource consent journey for WAGS HQ, but another Council invoice means there's still work to do.

Behind all the paperwork is something much more important:

A safe future for the rescue dogs who depend on WAGS. 🐕❤️

Whether it's $5, $10 or $20, every contribution gets us closer.

Can't donate? Sharing our page helps too!

🐾 26 days. $1,300. Let's see what our WAGS family can do.

🩷https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/wags-rescue-nz

Good morning, WAGS family. 🖤

Let’s start the week with a little Wh**ky update 🥃

Some days it feels like we’re moving forward in the tiniest of steps with our boy. There have been baths, medications, vet visits, special food and plenty of moments where my heart still feels heavy for him.

You desperately want to make everything better overnight.

But then you look at these photos. 🥹

Look at our beautiful boy.

His angry skin is settling, that gorgeous black coat is slowly growing back, he’s gaining strength and filling out.

But the best change of all is Wh**ky himself.

When he first arrived, he really didn’t know how to engage. Now he knows his pack, he knows where he belongs, and as he feels better we’re seeing more and more of his personality.

And our boy has swagger. 😂

Meeting a new doggo involves puffing out his chest and looking terribly important… before the tough-guy act disappears and he settles into sniffs and making a new mate.

He’s funny. He’s curious. He’s gaining confidence.

He’s Wh**ky.

Not Wh**ky on the rocks our boy is definitely smooth Wh**ky. 😂🥃

There’s still a road ahead, but today we’re celebrating more fur, more weight, more confidence and a whole lot more Wh**ky. 🖤

If you can help towards Wh**ky’s special food, ongoing vet appointments and treatment, even a few dollars makes a difference.

Anthony Koenen
38-9020-0185111-05
Reference: WH**KY

Small steps, beautiful boy. We’ll take every single one of them with you. 🖤🐾

Dearest followers and supporters our beautiful Michelle needs us to all rally around her and Pearl ❤️

🐾 Pearl’s surgery fund is officially underway.

We’ve had our first few donations come through, and we’re incredibly grateful to the 7 people who have already donated. Together, you’ve helped us reach $185 of our $5,000 goal. 🥹

If you know Pearl, you’ll know she’s a huge, lovable goofball who absolutely loves everyone. And one thing that never fails to make us laugh… this girl LOVES going to the vet! 😂

She’s had quite a few vet visits recently, but despite it all, Pearl still gets excited every time she goes. To her, the vet is just another opportunity to make some new friends. 😂❤️

Behind that big, happy personality, Pearl is dealing with a completely ruptured CCL, arthritis in her hip and knee, and an unstable knee joint. She needs surgery, and we want nothing more than to get her comfortable and back to being her big, silly self. 🐾

We still have a long way to go to reach $5,000, so if you can spare even a few dollars, please consider donating. And if you can’t donate, sharing Pearl’s fundraiser can make just as much of a difference.

Let’s show Pearl just how loved she is. ❤️

You can donate to Pearl’s Givealittle here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/help-pearl-get-back-on-her-feet

🐾🩷COMMUNITY PUPS UPDATE AND MEET BABY BEAN 🩵🐾

We’ve been popping in regularly to check on our community mumma, dad and their little babies, and there is SO much to update you on. 🥹

First up Dad is officially free from the cone of shame! 😂

Although technically, Dad made that decision himself. Apparently he’d had enough, found himself a conveniently positioned tree and wedged the bloody thing off. 🤦‍♀️😂

Luckily his leg has healed beautifully, so we’ll let him believe he won that battle.

Mumma is also looking fantastic. ❤️ She’s doing an incredible job feeding this enormous little family, and the pups are growing before our eyes.

Last week, their little eyes started opening. 👀🥹

All except one.

Our smallest little boy took a couple of extra days, and when his eyes finally opened we noticed that his left eye was cloudy.

You may remember him as our little bald-headed baby. Well, he now has a name…

🩵 BABY BEAN 🩵

Because of his eye and the fact that he is smaller than his siblings and has that unusual bald patch on his head we made the call to take Baby Bean to the vet today and get him properly checked.

Dr Fi believes one possibility is that the damage may relate to trauma around his birth. Baby Bean was stuck during delivery, and difficult births can cause trauma to newborn puppies, although at this stage we simply can’t know for certain whether that’s what caused the changes to his head and eye.

What we do know is that his left eye is damaged and he is most likely blind in that eye

There is also a possibility that the eye may eventually need to be removed, but right now he’s simply too young for us to know what his longer-term outcome will be. We’ll reassess as he grows, with a clearer picture expected once he’s around 10 weeks old.

And despite all of that?

Baby Bean is doing really well. 🩵

His body condition is good. He is smaller than his chunky brothers and sisters, but he’s feeding, growing and doing all the things a tiny Bean should be doing.

Today was also worming day for all babies and every single one took it like a little champion.

NO projectile rejection of the wormer.

We’ll take that as a rescue victory. 😂👏

We’ve topped Mumma up with some extra milk and wet food alongside her biscuits too, because producing enough milk for ALOT of hungry puppies takes a huge amount out of her. Her nutrition and body condition are just as important to us as the babies.

Next on the glamorous WAGS maternity ward agenda: tiny puppy manicures. 💅🐶

Those little nails are getting sharp, so they’ll be getting a trim not for vanity, but to make feeding all those babies a little more comfortable for Mumma.

The pups are also reaching the stage where we can begin the weaning process, which will finally start giving their beautiful mum a bit of a break.

Baby Bean will stay with Mumma this week, but we’re making sure he gets some protected one-on-one feeding time twice a day.

We’ve shown his owner how to give Bean that time with Mum without her constantly worrying about where the other babies are completely natural mumma instincts. 🩵🐾

Because when you’re the smallest kid at a milk bar with considerably chunkier siblings, you’ve got to fight pretty hard to keep your spot at the teat. 😂

As the litter moves into weaning, we’ll also be able to give Baby Bean more individual support and make sure he continues gaining and developing as he should.

And this is where we’re asking our WAGS family for a little help. 🙏

Our rescue account has taken a bit of a dent lately, and Baby Bean now has an unknown veterinary journey ahead of him.

Whether his eye ultimately stays or needs to be removed, whether he can see from it or not, one thing is absolutely certain:

This little boy will get every ounce of veterinary care, love and support he needs to have the best chance of a long, happy life.

Being blind in one eye certainly doesn’t mean Baby Bean can’t have a wonderful future.

We’ll take it one appointment at a time and we’ll bring all of you along for his journey. 🫘🐾🩵

If you’re able to help towards Baby Bean’s veterinary care,and the ongoing support of this little family, we would be incredibly grateful.

Account name: Anthony Koenen
Account: 38-9020-0185111-05
Reference: BABY BEAN

Even a few dollars genuinely helps us keep saying yes when one of these little lives needs something extra.

And to everyone who has been following this family from the night these babies arrived…

Look at them now. 🥹❤️

Healthy growing puppies.
One healthy mumma.
One cone-free, tree-assisted Dad. 😂
And one very special little Baby Bean who now has a whole WAGS family standing behind him. 🫘🐾🩵

🧸🐾 SOMEONE PLEASE TELL PHOEBE SHE IS A DOG, NOT A TEDDY BEAR 🐾🧸

Seriously… look at that little face. 🥹❤️

Our beautiful Phoebe is ready and waiting for her forever family, and we cannot understand how someone hasn’t fallen completely head-over-heels for those Dorito ears yet. 😂

She’s around 6 months old now, and the tiny, frightened and very unwell puppy who first arrived at WAGS feels a world away from the girl we see today.

Because Phoebe is absolutely thriving. ❤️

She is affectionate, playful, social with other dogs and has grown into the most gorgeous little character. She loves her toys, loves being around her people and, after everything she experienced early in life, she’s finally getting to simply enjoy being a puppy.

And can we talk about that FACE?!

Somehow she’s managed to combine Dorito ears with teddy-bear eyes, and frankly we think that’s cheating. 😂🧸

One of the loveliest parts of Phoebe’s journey has been watching her learn that she’s safe.

When she first went into foster care, even sleeping in a crate frightened her. Her foster would stay beside her and reassure her. Then one morning, they woke to find Phoebe happily playing with her toys in there by herself.

That little moment was huge.

Today, Phoebe is crate trained, desexed, comfortable with her own company, well socialised with other dogs and continuing to grow in confidence.

Now we want her to learn one final thing:

What it feels like to belong to a family of her very own. 🏡❤️

Phoebe is still young, so her forever people need to be ready to keep building on everything she’s learned more training, more adventures, more confidence and all the usual fun that comes with having a young dog.

But this girl has already shown us just how much love she has to give.

She’s been rescued.
She’s healed.
She’s learned to trust.

Now it’s Phoebe’s turn to go HOME. 🥹🐾

If you’re looking for a beautiful, affectionate little teddy bear with ridiculous ears and a whole lot of love waiting for the right people…

Come and meet our Phoebe. ❤️

📩 You can apply through the WAGS website or get in touch with our team.

And if Phoebe isn’t your girl, please share her. Somewhere out there is a family who is going to look at those Dorito ears and wonder how they ever lived without them. 😂🧸❤️

Meet Phoebe & enquire with WAGS Rescue NZ⁠

🚨🐾 OUR FLOWER GIRLS NEED YOU FOSTER HOMES NEEDED 🐾🚨

Our beautiful Flower Girls are growing up… and now it’s time for their next big step. ❤️

Our amazing friends at Club K9 have been helping us enormously, but they need their space back as they head into their busy season and, importantly, our girls have reached an age where spending time apart from their sisters is exactly what they need.

They’ve grown up together, played together, slept together and caused plenty of flower-powered chaos together. 😂🌸

But as they get older, they need the opportunity to develop independence, confidence and their own little personalities away from the litter.

So WAGS urgently needs foster homes for our Flower Girls. 🙏

You don’t need to have fostered before.

🐾 WAGS PROVIDES EVERYTHING YOU NEED.
Food, bedding, crates, vet care and support from our team we provide it all.

What we need from you is a safe home, some time, love, patience and the willingness to help one of our girls take this really important step towards becoming the best little dog she can be.

Fostering doesn’t just give us somewhere for a puppy to stay.

It is part of their development.

It gives them the chance to learn how to live in a home without relying on their sisters, build confidence on their own, bond with people and prepare for their eventual forever families. 🏡❤️

Even if you can only help for a month minimum, please reach out.

🌸 CAN YOU GIVE ONE FLOWER GIRL A PLACE TO BLOOM? 🌸

Send the WAGS team a message if you can foster, and please SHARE this post far and wide. 🙏🐾

Our girls need their village right now. ❤️

🩷🐾 WAGS IS GOING PINK! 🐾🩷

On Sunday 11 October, the WAGS crew is swapping rescue duties for walking shoes as we join the Pink Ribbon Walk at Auckland Domain in support of Breast Cancer Foundation NZ. 🩷

A bunch of our team, friends and wonderful WAGS supporters are getting together to tackle the 5km walk and, naturally, we’re bringing some of the WAGS dogs along for the adventure too!

Expect to see WAGS shirts, a whole lot of pink, dogs in pink accessories, tutus, questionable fashion choices and probably at least one dog who thinks the entire event has been organised purely for them. 😂🐕🎀

We’re doing it for a cause that touches so many families raising awareness and helping support breast cancer research, education and patient support here in Aotearoa. 🩷

So if you’re doing the walk too and you spot a slightly chaotic sea of WAGS dogs and humans dressed in pink, come over and say hello!

And if you’re standing along the route, give us a wave we’ll be the ones trying to convince a pack of rescue dogs that 5km is a walk, not a sniff-every-single-blade-of-grass expedition. 😂

📅 Sunday 11 October 2026
📍 Auckland Domain
🐾 WAGS is doing the 5km
🩷 Pink. Very, very pink.

We hope to see lots of our WAGS whānau out there. 🩷🐾

Pink Ribbon Walk Breast Cancer Foundation NZ⁠

Apparently Council doesn’t accept payment in pats, belly rubs or tennis balls… rude. 🐶💸

Our WAGS HQ resource consent journey is still rolling along, and the latest plot twist comes with a price tag.

Thanks to our incredible WAGS village, we raised and paid the $4,500 Council processing deposit. We thought that was a pretty impressive effort.

Council, however, said: hold my invoice. 😂

Processing costs have now reached $5,800.75, which means we have another $1,300.75 to find… and there may still be more costs to come.

So we’re passing the virtual dog bowl around again. 🥣🐾

If 130 amazing humans donated just $10, we’d pretty much knock this latest amount over.

$5 helps.
$10 helps.
$20 definitely helps.
$50 makes our tails wag VERY enthusiastically.
And sharing this post costs absolutely nothing but could help us reach someone who can donate.

Every dollar gets us another step closer to securing the future of WAGS HQ and continuing to give rescue dogs the second chances they deserve. ❤️

Can you throw a few dollars in the WAGS bowl? 🐾

👇 Donate here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/wags-rescue-nz

And if donating isn’t possible right now, please share, share, share. That genuinely helps too.

WAGS Rescue NZ Help WAGS through the remaining resource consent costs and secure a safe future for the rescue dogs who depend on us.