Jan Yale and the network of volunteers her Pomeranian Rescue Group has developed have placed more than 400 Pomeranians in loving homes over the past 14 years, and still the need to find more interim and permanent households for the small dogs keeps growing.

Yale oversees the group from her home in El Sobrante as a labor of love; last month she hosted an eighth annual reunion of 100 adopted Pomeranians and their owners.

"It was the best reunion ever," Yale said. "I was so touched by it. It was really wonderful."

Along with the success stories there is a growing need to find more adopting homes and more people willing to care for the "Poms" until a home is found. Many of the rescues — including 22 brought to the group from Wyoming last year — are ill-treated refugees of "puppy mills" where they have been bred simply for the high commercial profit they can fetch.