It was a Saturday afternoon in December and the Petco on Ford Parkway in St. Paul was busy with shoppers coming and going, some of them accompanied by dogs wearing holiday sweaters.

At the center of the store, enticing customers to pause, was a gaggle of six puppies from three litters, up for adoption through Pooches United with People (PUP).

“Where’s their mom?” asked a volunteer about two of the puppies.

“She’s in my basement,” said PUP founder Jeanne Weigum. “It’s a good story and a bad story.”

“Most are,” said the volunteer.

True, and this one is our Christmas story.

Jeanne

If anyone in St. Paul has a big enough heart to rescue dogs, it’s Weigum, who at 80 is still volunteering on several fronts.

It was a year ago that the St. Paul City Council voted to declare Dec. 13, 2023, as “Jeanne Weigum Day” in honor of her volunteer work, which includes serving as the president of the Association for Non-Smokers-MN. She has also fought against billboards and planted ornamental gardens, spending decades working to improve the city where she lives.

The city council’s resolution called her the “grande dame of advocacy and community building in St. Paul … and beyond for the past 50-plus years.”

Weigum’s work with animals is rooted in both St. Paul and western South Dakota, where she grew up.

“I still have a home in Mobridge,” she said of her hometown.

While Weigum started volunteering locally with the Animal Humane Society and then Second Chance Animal Rescue, she also wanted to help in South Dakota, especially alongside her neighbors from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

“I was connected to Judy White Bull of Wamakaskan Onsaka, which in Lakota loosely translates to ‘animals in need,’” she said.

While her friend has since passed away, South Dakota is still Weigum’s focus for helping animals and the people who love them. Working with locals, Pooches United with People coordinates wellness clinics, animal rescues and more.

It was one such local who saved a dog called Lola.

Lola

Weigum emailed the Pioneer Press about a dog from South Dakota on Nov. 30.

“I have a pooch that I think you and your readers might find interesting to learn about and follow,” she wrote.

It was Lola.

“Lola was abandoned by her family in a 300-person town,” Weigum explained.

Rudy Little Shield of Mobridge, a volunteer with PUP, was familiar with the young dog, a mutt with floppy ears and a reserved disposition.

“I first saw her as a little pup. We vaccinated her along with a couple other ones,” Little Shield recalled in a phone interview. “I knew Lola’s family, but they ended up moving. I don’t know why they left her, I just knew she didn’t have anybody. She was always running around — I don’t think she stayed anywhere.”

“Then, as nature would have it,” Weigum said, “she got pregnant.”

“A friend called,” Little Shield said. “She said, ‘Can you come check on this dog?’”

It was Lola, and she was having her puppies outside of the friend’s house.

“She had dug a little hole right where the vent comes out to the dryer, maybe because it was warm there,” Little Shield said.

“When she started to deliver there was literally no manger and no room in the inn,” Weigum said. “She started having her puppies out in the open.”

Little Shield brought Lola and her litter a dog house for shelter, a protected space away from other dogs and curious children, but Lola quickly disappeared.

“And then, about a week later, my sister called me,” he said. “She said, ‘There’s a dog under my porch and it has puppies.”

It was Lola, again. Unfortunately, only five of her nine puppies had survived.

This time, Little Shield was able to get Lola into a kennel with the help of pieces of chicken.

Soon, Lola and four of the surviving pups were on their way to St. Paul with PUP, where our story continues.

“I just hope they get a home,” Little Shield said.

The fifth pup already found a home — with Little Shield.

A new life

Temperatures were falling in St. Paul on Dec. 10, but Lola and her puppies didn’t seem to notice as they romped around Weigum’s backyard.

“Look how happy she is,” Weigum observed of Lola.

It’s a big change, having shelter and food and companionship.

“She has gained weight and her coat is no longer dull and rough but beautifully shiny,” Weigum says.

There are still challenges, though.

“She is learning to associate treats with hands and is starting to like human company at least a wee bit,” says Weigum.

With her puppies weaned and three of them adopted, Lola has been placed in foster care with Katie Holmes of Minneapolis, a new volunteer.

“I was at Petco during their adopt-a-puppy event and chatting with somebody there,” Holmes said. “I said, ‘I’m just looking, I can’t take on the financial responsibility of a puppy right now.’ They said, ‘The mom of some of the puppies is going to need a foster, do you want to meet her?’ Let’s go drive over to Jeanne’s house.’ So we did and when I saw Lola’s stupidly large ears and her sweetness, I just kind of fell in love.”

So far, Holmes has learned that Lola loves car rides but does not love being left home alone. She is also willing to tag along to Holmes’ dog-friendly office, where she has made a friend, a dog/mentor named Mishka. Back at her foster home, she enjoys sleeping on a futon and tolerates Holmes’ cat.

After a “chill” Christmas with Holmes, there’s work to be done before Lola is ready for adoption.

“The foster will work on socializing and desensitizing to the frightening things from the past,” Weigum says. “We are at the middle of this story, with much yet to come.”

Joy

Sara Janssen and her family were reeling this fall after losing both of their dogs in the span of a week: Bella was 15 years old, but Frida — adopted through PUP — died at age five from a rare autoimmune inflammatory disease.

“Jeanne was the first person I called,” Janssen said after Frida’s death. “I hadn’t spoken to her since I adopted Frida, but I needed to talk to her. She is such a warm and loving person, representing all the best things about the adoption and rescue community.”

Weigum knew what Janssen needed: She needed to cuddle some puppies; she needed to hold new life in her hands.

That’s just what she did, after Weigum brought Lola and her puppies 400 miles from South Dakota to St. Paul.

Soon, one of those puppies — Cricket — was driving a few more blocks, to Janssen’s home.

“If there are people out there like myself, people who have lost a pet who left a hole in their heart and they don’t know where to turn to regain what their heart is missing, what I want to share is how it felt when Cricket was in my lap as we drove the four blocks home from Jeanne’s.

“The joy that comes from having a puppy next to you,” Janssen says, “it’s an unadulterated joy you regain that day.”

A joy that feels like Christmas.

PUP adoption event

Two of Lola’s puppies, Stash and Shirley, are available for adoption and still waiting for homes. Learn more about them at https://pupmn.org/.

The puppies will attend a Pooches United with People adoption event from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3 at Arbeiter Brewing, 3038 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis.

Follow updates about Lola in foster care on PUP’s Facebook page at facebook.com/PUP.MN).

Originally Published: December 25, 2024 at 10:25 AM CST

South Dakota Medicaid will soon cover birth and postpartum doula services. Doulas can support families as part of a broader healthcare team during pregnancy and through the year following birth.

South Dakota Medicaid will directly reimburse doulas as Type 1 healthcare providers starting in the new year. Kelsie Thomas is board president for South Dakota Doulas, the nonprofit that worked with the state Department of Social Services to add this new coverage. She said doula services can include gathering personalized resources for families, patient advocacy and home-visits after birth.

“The doula role is special in this sense that it’s hired by families as an advocate, as a resource position, as a voice for you in the process,” Thomas said.

The most recent Medicaid Report from the state Department of Social Services notes around 40% of South Dakota children rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program in their first year of life. Thomas hopes partnering with the state Medicaid program will make doula services more accessible, thereby improving postpartum outcomes.

“We haven’t had that kind of financial support, and families have had to make room for that,” Thomas said. “Now being able to have that, add that insurance—which is trending nationwide. Insurance is covering birth and postpartum work just due to the impact we’re seeing and statistics for labor and birth and the proactive measures that it’s creating in lives.”

Various studies suggest doulas can help improve birth experiences for mothers and reduce the likelihood of postpartum depression, among other potential benefits.

Thomas said doulas are not a replacement for the clinical care provided by obstetricians or midwives, but instead serve as part of a pregnancy care team.

South Dakota Medicaid coverage of doula services begins January 1.

CANTON — Commissioners in South Dakota’s fastest-growing county punted on four carbon dioxide pipeline ordinances on Christmas Eve, opting to let their planning staff and two new commissioners start from scratch in the new year.

The Lincoln County Commission has wrestled with its approach to carbon pipelines for about two years. Several counties in South Dakota have passed ordinances restricting underground carbon pipelines so strictly that the company proposing a carbon capture pipeline through South Dakota, Summit Carbon Solutions, says it would be impossible to fully comply with all the local requirements and still build the project. The company has also applied for a state permit, which is under review.

Second filing fee for carbon pipeline project raises total potential fees to $1.47 million

The project is a $9 billion pipeline to carry pressurized carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska to an underground sequestration site in North Dakota. The company hopes to cash in on federal tax credits available for activities meant to mitigate the impact of climate change, in this case by keeping some of the heat-trapping gases produced in the ethanol production process from reaching the atmosphere.

Lincoln County is not one of the counties with stricter rules for carbon pipelines than Summit would prefer, though the controversial project has animated discussions about the issue and likely impacted the results of the most recent county commission elections.

Two commissioners, Jim Jibben and Mike Poppens, lost their primary elections to anti-pipeline candidates, one of whom appeared in the commission chambers Tuesday to voice her concerns about the four ordinances up for possible passage.

“I’m opposed to all of them,” said incoming commissioner Betty Otten, who also accused the current commission of being too cozy with Summit to be trusted to make decisions on the matter.

Back to the drawing board

Lincoln County commissioners opted last year to study the options for regulation. An ad-hoc study committee offered suggestions to the planning commission, which held public hearings on the options following the November election.

A state law dubbed the “landowner bill of rights” by its sponsors was on the November general election ballot thanks to a petition drive by pipeline opponents who felt it didn’t do enough for landowners to deserve that branding. The referred law failed to earn support from voters, with nearly 60% saying no. 

Pipeline opponents receive cease and desist letters from Summit

The four ordinances up for possible passage on Tuesday were the result of the planning work and public hearings, Planning Director Toby Brown told the commission. Commissioners were meant to pick one, as each would set a different set of guidelines and conflict with one another if passed together.

The first and second options would have put planners in charge of deciding if a carbon pipeline project would qualify as a permitted land use. The planning commission did not recommend commissioners pass those. 

The third would have required carbon pipeline companies to seek conditional use permits, which would open up a public hearing and the chance for opponents to challenge the county commission in court if its members voted to give Summit a permit.

The fourth would have barred pipelines in agricultural areas, but allowed them in areas zoned as industrial. With that option, the company could ask the commission to rezone the entire narrow strip of land under which the pipeline would run as industrial land. Voters would be able to refer the commission’s decision on the rezone to a public vote.

Vote faces pushback

Every Lincoln County resident to offer public comment on the ordinances Tuesday asked the commission to send the ordinances back to the planning commission, but not before telling them they’d rather not talk about them until next year. 

“This is too important, it’s been too long, and I just think it’s prudent that we have the new commission in there,” said Scott Montgomery of Fairview, echoing the words of half a dozen others in the commission chambers.

Lincoln County’s failure to pass an ordinance is at least partially the result of actions one commissioner took before debate started. Poppens took a deal with Summit for access to his own property, and he’s recused himself from every debate and vote on pipeline regulations. 

On Tuesday, though, Poppens did cast a vote, and it was to keep the pipeline discussion on the agenda. 

North Dakota approves CO2 storage for Summit pipeline

Commissioner Tiffani Landeen had asked for a vote to table the discussion until January, when Poppens and Jibben will be replaced by the candidates who ousted them in the June primary. Landeen said the timing of the discussion and the weight of the issue for citizens combined to convince her that debate should happen after the new commission is seated.

Poppens, in his last vote before leaving the body, said no.

“Residents of the county, my family personally, we are impacted. So I’m not going to discuss the ordinance, but I am against tabling it. It’s an important issue,” Poppens said.

Also opposed to tabling were Jibben and Joel Arends, who pushed his fellow commissioners to pass an ordinance, ideally one with a 500-foot setback required between the pipeline and homes, schools and businesses. Members of the public had taken time out of their holiday week to offer their opinions, he said, so they ought to be able to do that.

He also said that the county has already delayed making a decision, and that leaving it up to the next commission would be a dereliction of duty. 

“We’re in some kind of circular doom loop here,” Arends said. “We just have to put our feet down and say ‘we’re elected to office, we’re accountable, this is what it’s going to be.’” 

But Commissioner Jim Schmidt said voting on the ordinances during a day many might be unable to attend the meeting wouldn’t sit well with him.

“Is it an encumbrance for you to come back? Maybe. I’m sorry for that, but I think there’s a lot more that we would hear from when it’s not Christmas Eve,” Schmidt said.

After deciding to take testimony and hearing every citizen who spoke say they disliked all four ordinances, commissioners took their final vote of 2024.

Landeen made the motion to send the ordinances back to the planning commission, on which she serves as the commission’s representative.

No one in the room liked the ideas on offer, said Landeen, a Sioux Falls attorney and former Turner County state’s attorney, whose own take on the ordinances was that they were vague and unworkable. The last option might seem the most palatable to opponents, as it offers the chance to vote down the commission’s choice. But even there, she said, she doesn’t like the idea of having “this weird strip” of light industrial land running through the county for no reason but to make a pipeline possible.

“The language of these ordinances doesn’t do what anybody needs them to do,” Landeen said.