Jennifer and Jim are good people who have devoted their life to rescuing and fostering dogs. This pair of animal lovers will stop at nothing to take care of a poor dog in need. One of the dogs that Jennifer and Jim had brought home to foster, was Pearl. This sweet Pit Bull had been living a pretty rough life. Despite everything, she was such a loving dog. Given their weakness for animals, Jennifer and Jim quickly fell in love with Pearl and couldn’t bear to see her go – so she became their foster fail. At first the family was happy and it seemed as though Pearl’s heartaches were behind her. But then shortly after bringing her home and officially adopting her, the couple noticed that Pearl began to lose weight at an alarmingly quick rate.
After several visits and consultations with their vet, it was determined that Pearl was suffering from a pancreatic complication known as exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Basically, EPI causes the number of digestive enzymes in the body to shrink, as a result those with the illness will develop problems such as weight loss and malnutrition.
As the medical bills began to stack up to almost $16,000, both Jim and Jennifer refused to give up hope for Pearl.
In an act of solidarity, Jennifer’s second-grade class decided to do their part to help their teacher’s dog. And these kind kids decided to set up a lemonade stand – a move that managed to catch the attention of Ellen DeGeneres, who brought the couple onto her show.
Jim shared, “We had decided from the very beginning that as long as she was not in pain and she was going to continue to fight, that we would fight for her.”
“Our dogs are our babies, so it was never any big decision,” Jennifer added.
Ellen explained on her segment, “So they put up a lemonade stand and raised $120. That’s a lot of lemonade. So good for them!”
The talk show host then also revealed that she was pitching in as well in order to help Jim and Jennifer take care of Pearl.
You can watch the moment that Ellen reveals her surprise to the couple in the video below:
