Saved by Olivia

Just days before flying to Los Angeles to fight a court battle over the collapse of her Koala Blue chain, Olivia Newton-John began another mercy mission of sorts. A last minute run to the local rubbish tip by Olivia, husband Matt Lattanzi and seven-year-old daughter Chloe was the saving grace for a pair of near-frozen Doberman puppies left to die among the mountains of garbage.

The four-week-old puppies, which Chloe christened Bluetha (“That’s what colour he was when we found him,” says Matt) and Pleatha, were badly frostbitten and starving after being abandoned at a council rubbish dump on the NSW North Coast. “It was a freezing cold, rainy day when we found the poor little things,” says Olivia. “They were in such a state. They were shivering and soaking wet and, judging by their skeletons, near starved.”

“I can’t believe someone would be so callous as to just leave them to die in that way.” Although Olivia who already has six dogs at her Malibu Beach home dearly wanted to keep Bluetha and Pleatha, her family’s imminent return to the US meant that good homes had to be found pronto. “I wanted to find someone who would give them plenty of love and attention,” Olivia says. “We were running out of time and I was starting to get very worried.”

“Fortunately, one of Chloe’s school friends managed to talk her parents into letting her take Bluetha and on the last day a nearby farmer agreed to adopt Pleatha.”

Here’s hoping Olivia’s US court battle has much the same happy outcome.