Ms Hickey said the pup had since been adopted by a friend of Miss Woestenburg's.
"Joyce hand-raised him for a few weeks before her friend, who lives in Hastings, fell in love with him and so did her dog!"
Miss Woestenburg said at one stage she feared she was going to lose him.
"He was really dehydrated and there was one night where I was really worried and I had to drip-feed him all night. I thought I was going to lose him but he pulled through. Because he was so little, he went everywhere I went," said Miss Woestenburg, who developed a special bond with the pup, the first animal she had cared for on behalf of the SPCA.
"I was actually thinking of keeping him myself because he was so special."
However, after taking the pup in on January 21 a dog-owning friend from Hastings
adopted him a few weeks later on February 10.
"One day she brought her dog around and it just mothered the pup. And she said 'right, that's my dog then'," said Miss Woestenburg, who found it a very rewarding experience to find a forever home for the pup.
The dog's new owner said she had given the pup a Viking name, Ragnar.
"We decided he was such a little battler he needed a good, strong name," said the new owner, who decided to adopt the dog because of the reaction of her 4-year-old black Labrador cross, Jet.
"She's never had puppies but within a minute she immediately laid down and let him suckle for comfort," said the new owner, before admitting there was another reason behind the adoption.
"I took one look at him and it was hard not to turn to mush."
She said after Miss Woestenburg had done "the hard yards" and hand-fed Ragnar bottles at four-hourly intervals in those vital first few weeks, Ragnar had fully recovered.
"He just had his last lots of jabs and I think he was 12kg. He's a picture of health now.
The owners who dumped Ragnar and his siblings had come forward after the incident, but CHB SPCA shelter manager Renee Hickey said there had been insufficient evidence to pursue a successful prosecution.
She said the owners had been dealt with appropriately, but the outcome was confidential.