Meet Mona 💕

Mona

In November, while volunteering at our county shelter, we met a beautiful, sweet and incredibly scared Rottweiler puppy named Mona. One look at her, and we knew we had to help.

We reached out to Nelly, one of our rockstar fosters who pours her heart into helping fearful dogs build confidence, and without hesitation, she said yes. When Mona first walked out of the shelter, she kept her body so low to the ground she was nearly crawling. She was a terrified baby girl, unsure of the world around her after leaving the scariest place she had ever known.

Fast forward just two months, and Mona’s transformation has been nothing short of amazing. With daily structure, patience, and love from Nelly and her husband, Mona has begun to blossom into the puppy she was always meant to be. She’s gaining confidence, experiencing new things, and learning that the world isn’t so scary after all.

Mona and Frenchie buddy.

Mona now enjoys playing with her foster sister, a Frenchie, and the two love to romp and play together. She is a gentle, sweet soul with so much potential and a heart that’s ready to trust. Mona has come such a long way, and she truly deserves a home of her very own, one that will continue to nurture her confidence and celebrate her growth. 📍

Adoption Requirement: • Must live in Arizona- We do not adopt outside of the state

If you’re looking for a special puppy to grow with, love, and cheer on as she continues to blossom, Mona may be the perfect match. 💛 Help us find Mona the forever family she’s been waiting for. Apply to adopt Mona at: https://www.rottenrottie.com/adoption-application

Sage's story

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4a9e4a_6326188ee7364b5aa7ee03008378e43d/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Meet Sage

Sage has a very sad story and I really want to help her, but I can’t without a foster home for her. She belongs to a drug addict who lives in a hotel room, and has repeatedly tried to kill herself. When this happens the dogs are left to fend for themselves, paramedics arrive, and take their owner, and they have no one to care for them.

The owner's mother will no longer take them in, so their owner's grandmother agreed to take them this time, but she is not strong enough to handle them and she is going in to have heart surgery on Friday. She is trying desperately not to turn them over to county and is begging that we help her.

Currently they live in a run on the side of her house with a small part of her garage reserved so that they can get in out of the weather at night or when it’s been raining. The most she can do for them is to place their food and water over the fence that she has set up to separate them from the rest of her garage.

Sage is a sweet girl who lives with a 7 month old cane corso/pitbull mix and does well with her. She is obviously overweight. She said that her granddaughter did take her through a training program but hasn’t really followed through with that training. She has power of attorney over her grand-daughter so she can legally re-home her dogs.

I would take Sage in a second if I had a place to put her! I would hate to see her go to county or worse. Her grandmother even called county and they told her that they were full and she needed to make an appointment and someone would call her back within 72 hours to do that but nobody has called her back yet.

So there is a possibility that county won’t take her before Friday and if she can not find them a place to go before she goes in before the heart surgery, she is talking about letting them loose to fend for themselves.

If you are looking to adopt a young (2 year old) female Rottie, consider being Sage’s Rottie hero please. She deserves stability, and to be properly cared for. We are in Gilbert, AZ. We can not ship Sage out of state.

She will need to be fostered in the Phoenix area or adopted to someone within AZ. If you are interested in saving her life, please go to www.rottenrottie.com and fill out the proper application under the "How To" button. Thank you.

1st adoption of 2026:

Handsome Ripley

Our very own Mark Cefalu has adopted his 3rd Rotten Rottie Ripley (previously known as Rupert) !! Mark has been part of the Rotten Rottie family for years, and when I asked him to meet The man that found li'l Ripley in an ally in Casa Grande he didn’t hesitate to help!

Something unexpected happened on their way back... they fell in love!! Timing could not have been worse though because Mark’s Rotten Rottie, Kai, just had his second ACL surgery which means that Kai has to stay calm and no playing for 6 weeks!

So li'l Ripley couldn’t go home yet. Yesterday, Ripley was sent to boarding school for a month with Karen at Dynamic Dog Training AZ to learn from the best, so when Ripley does get to go to his new home and meet his new brother, he will be ready to enjoy the good stuff in life!

Ripley and Mark

Huge thanks to Richard and Alicia Isaacson and D and Niko Huffman for letting Ripley hang out with them until school started. On his first day of school this frozen white stuff was falling out of the sky!! How fun! Congrats Mark and Rene!