Hello friends! Welcome to Ruff Life! Well, it's a bittersweet transport day today, and
before I even get started, just a side note, I have been wanting to record this podcast
for over an hour now, but I couldn't because I had to wait for my hiccups to go away. It
took forever, but they're finally gone, so let's go! For the first time in a long time,
we actually didn't get enough fosters lined up, so we were not able to send everybody
on our list this week. Now, you OGs know exactly what that means for us down here, but for
those of you who don't, I'll explain our system really quick. We have a never-ending
cycle of animals moving in and out, so on transport days, my fosters down here bring
their animals to transport and drop them off, and they pick up another litter to take home
and foster. Now, obviously, it's not always litters, sometimes it's singles, and of course,
sometimes they go on vacation and they don't pick anybody up. There's also cases where
we just absolutely have too much going on, or the litter they're sending was sick and
they want to do some deep cleaning after they leave, so a day or two after transport, we
send them a new litter. So, in situations like this, today, where multiple litters that we
thought were leaving don't actually get to leave, nothing happens for them. They stay
with their foster another two weeks until our next transport day, and it's fine. It's
the animals that are on our waiting list that suffer the most from it. Puppies that were
supposed to be safe in a foster home tonight are now still at their original location where
they're at risk of being given away, disappearing, being run over, etc. And actually, in today's
specific instance, two litters that live next door to each other were supposed to go on
transport. It was 10 puppies total. They were not in our foster care because we had absolutely
nowhere to put them, and their owners were just going to keep them until today. Well,
those 10 puppies are now down to five puppies total after they gave one away, and four disappeared.
So we plan to send them today on transport and for Jessica to get a new litter to foster,
but because these are just in such an unsafe environment, Jessica had to take them on,
and we just have to hope for the best for the other litter for the next two weeks. But
enough of the bummer news. The great news is one of our long term adult fosters finally
got his freedom right today. And the two adult dogs that I was thinking there was no way
they would get to go and that they would have to stay at the doghouse for the next few weeks
managed to get fosters signed up for them and they got to go too. So the doghouse is
completely empty tonight for the first time in a long time. Have no fear though, we have
plans to fill it back up tomorrow. We just needed a night to decompress and deep clean.
And if you're thinking well problem solved, Katie, just throw the litter of puppies over
there. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. We use the doghouse for adult dogs and cats
and kittens. Animals that don't need the observation that puppies require and don't
need the time and quarantining that they require. The doghouse animals are only visited a couple
times a day for just a couple minutes at a time. It is by no means an ideal foster situation
for anyone. But when your only options are be boarded out of bed in a small run, be left
wherever you are, or have an entire air conditioned home and a one acre fenced in backyard that
you can access by a doggy door. It's obviously better than the alternatives.
Okay, so let's get to the background stories. Our sweet SpaghettiOs is the long term adult
that I was just talking about. Last month, Dr. Burton and I had a long talk about needing
to slow down on our random adult dog pools. She explained that they were making room for
several owner surrenders that were coming back into the system up there. And I needed
to prioritize my adult dog spots for the mama dogs that couldn't be left behind. So we have
this long talk. We agree. We're both on the same page. Done. And literally five minutes
after we get off the phone, I was sent spaghettiOs picture. If you follow me on any Wolf Trap
pages, you know exactly what picture I am talking about. Someone saw his owner speeding
away after they dumped him on a gravel road and they watched as he lay down right there
and waited and waited and waited for his family to come back for him. After about an hour
of watching, she sent me the picture and asked if she could bring him to me. So after just
coming to the understanding with Dr. Burton that we would not be pulling random adult
dogs for a few weeks, I sent her his picture. And I told her the story and just I was like,
what am I supposed to do? And she replied with, well, obviously go get him. spaghettiOs
has been with us for over a month now waiting on his freedom ride and he has watched so
many of his friends come and go. It has been so hard watching him get left behind every
week. He has been such a great friend to everyone that has needed to stay there with him for
a few days at a time. And you could tell he really enjoyed the company so much. We are
so happy that he is finally going to be in a real home with a real family because he
is truly one of the most deserving dogs. Linguine came to us from another rescuer who we used
to work with all the time. So this was such a fun throwback to get to do this with her
again. She was contacted about this puppy by a lady who used to foster for her when
she lived down here. The lady explained that someone reached out to her and said that they
let their momma dog give birth outside in a terrible storm several weeks ago. All of
the puppies died from my understanding. They died at birth in the storm, except for this
one. So if his new family doesn't name him storm, I'm going to be very disappointed.
The T litter of four and the P litter of seven are from the same home. Both of the momma
dogs were found wandering around after a tornado tore through a nearby town a few months
ago. A family found them and took them in after not being able to find their owners.
And of course, their unaltered male was all too happy to have two new single ladies living
with them. So they got pregnant right away. Thankfully, this family was very willing to
just turn all the puppies over to a rescue instead of trying to re-home them. And they
are very excited to be getting their momma's spade for free.
The C litter of 10 is actually just a litter of nine in a stowaway. The 10th puppy just
wandered up into their yard when they were all about five weeks old. They asked the neighbors
if anyone recognized it and no one did. So the owner posted pictures of all 10 of them
on Facebook as free to a good home. And one of our rescue partners contacted them about
surrendering all the puppies in order to get the mom's spade for free. The M litter of
seven where owner surrenders after a momma dog was dropped off at someone's house. They
initially tried to run her off, but when they realized she wasn't going anywhere, they accepted
their fate as new dog owners and they let her stay. Of course, it wasn't long until
she was pregnant, but the owner was very happy to surrender all the puppies and get a spade
voucher for the momma. The E litter of two doodles are apparently registered doodles,
which is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. But I digress. The owner
said her preacher gave them to her, but then she had to move back in with her parents and
her parents live on the four lane highway with no fence. So the dogs had to be created
the majority of the day every day. And she knew that just wasn't the life she wanted
for them. As for the cats, only seven of them on transport this week, the R litter of five
were born at the landfill. But when they were about two weeks old, the workers at the landfill
noticed that the momma cat hadn't been around in a while and that the kittens were screaming.
So we got them set up with one of our bottle feeder fosters. And she took care of them
for over a month for us before Jessica took them over just a few weeks ago. Jessica also
told me to be sure that I tell y'all they are the sweetest kittens ever. Zedie is yet
another one of the 15 cats that I pulled from the shelter here in Alabama forever ago. She
has been staying at the doghouse in our cat room for the last several weeks and we love
her. Noki is also part of those 15 kittens. She is the momma cat to several of the kittens.
I think this is actually a first for us, but we're actually sending her before her kittens.
They're fighting off some upper respiratory infections and she was having to be separated
from them anyways. And because Zedie was going to be leaving the doghouse today, that meant
that Noki would be there all alone for the next two weeks. And not only that, but we
wouldn't be able to put any other kittens in that room because she was there. So we
are very thankful that she got to go and I know she is going to be so much happier somewhere
where she's getting some real attention and human interaction. Well, that is all the stories
for this week. It was a smaller load than usual, but there are some very sweet, very
deserving babies on this load and we are so excited for them to get to experience a real
family. Our next transport is in two weeks and we are already on the hunt for fosters
for it. So if you are needing a puppy fix or some kitten biscuits in your life, let me
help you get signed up. It's a rough life, but someone's got to do it.