At just 5 weeks old, Snowflake had already earned most of her wrinkles.

The tiny shar pei mix was practically born into a world of worry. It began with her being found behind a dumpster in Bakersfield, California. Then she appeared in an internet ad where the person who found her was trying to sell her for $10. Finally, she was left on a stranger’s doorstep.

“He heard something and he went outside,” Amanda Brooks, adoption coordinator at Marley’s Mutts, tells The Dodo. “And this little dog was on his doorstep, soaking wet and freezing cold.”

The man who found Snowflake at his doorstep couldn’t find any signs of Snowflake’s family in the neighborhood. So he started checking lost pet sites on the internet. That’s when he found an ad for a puppy who looked a lot like Snowflake.

The ad explained that the puppy had been found behind a local dumpster. The person who found her was asking for $10.

Someone had offered $5.

Snowflake apparently didn’t meet the asking price because the comments, after the $5 bid, fell silent. Not long after that, she was, mercifully, left at a stranger’s doorstep.

Then the man soon got in touch with Brooks, who rushed over that night.

“She was in bad shape,” she recalls. “She was very, very skinny. She was super dehydrated and she was cold to the touch.

“This is Bakersfield. We don’t get snow. But it freezes.”

Brooks called Andrea Bertolucci, a veterinary advisor for Marley’s Mutts- and Bertolucci reopened the clinic to examine Snowflake.

The puppy’s temperature was hovering around 94 degrees – well below the 101 degrees considered healthy for her age.

But Snowflake wasn’t letting go of her first real chance at a life. After being treated and given fluids to fight dehydration, “she just progressively got better and better,” Brooks says.

Then Snowflake entered the second phase of her return to the living: a foster home.

That’s where a dog named Massie, a permanent family member there, knew exactly what to do.

“She’s totally taken on kind of a mom role,” Brooks says.

And, along the way, boosted Snowflake’s chances of finding a forever home.

“That’s actually one of the problems when you get single puppies that don’t have littermates or don’t have a mom,” Brooks explains. “They don’t learn how to be a dog. They don’t learn not to bite too hard. They don’t know when they’ve had enough playtime.

“And they end up being not necessarily aggressive, but they play more rough and they don’t really realize they’re hurting you.”

Massie kept Snowflake’s exuberance in check, while playing with her and showing her how to be a dog.

But Snowflake’s boundless gratitude still shines through.

“She’s so cute. The cutest,” Brooks says. “Spunky, playful. Completely healthy.”

And, in about a month, she will be ready for her forever home.

Check the adoption page for Marley’s Mutts for updates on her condition.

And if you would like to support this organization in its mission to save countless dogs like Snowflake, consider making a donation.