Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life! Another transport in the books today and it was quite a doozy.
I was about 30 minutes away from the doghouse where we do our transports when I got an emergency
notice on my phone and in my car saying that there was a tornado right by where I was and
that I needed to get out of my car and into substantial shelter. Well, I didn't pay too
much mind to it but as I was driving along I started noticing everyone that lived in trailer homes
leaving their homes and walking to their neighbors that had sturdier homes to take cover.
But as I always say, come heller high water transport must go on and a tornado is certainly
nothing to delay transport over. So I kept driving. I will say though when I was driving down the road
at two o'clock in the afternoon and it was so dark outside that my automatic brights came on
I was a little on edge but lucky for me I had my mom and grandma watching the weather to let me know
if it was headed straight towards me or if I was going in the opposite direction and thankfully I
was about two miles ahead of it and it was going the other way. But back to transport. Once I finally
got there and we got going things actually went really well and we hardly even got rained on so
that was great. It was another small load today which always makes loading up easier on these near
100 degree days but we were very sad about the puppies that didn't get to go today.
Today's theme is snakes and if you're wondering how I found so many snake names to do an entire
transport that's because there's over 3,000 different species of snakes in the world.
That's insane and if this theme gives you the heebie-jeebies consider moving to Ireland or New
Zealand because I learned that there are no snakes there at all. That's crazy but do not move to
Mississippi because I'm pretty sure about 2,999 species of snake live here. But if you're wondering
why on earth I picked snakes as my theme keep listening. So King Cobra was found dumped at
the sod farms in the town where my mom lives. Her neighbor was out there and saw him and he
ran to her as fast as he could. She brought him home and asked my mom if we could take him of course.
He was so skinny so we know he was out on his own for quite a while. Jolene now Diamond Python
is a Dalmatian German short hair pointer mix. She was an owner-surrender but was originally found
just walking in the road all by herself. The owners never found her real owners so they just
kept her. They ended up posting her on Facebook as free to a good home because she kills their
chickens. The rescue we got all the GSPs from earlier this year contacted us because she knows
my love for bird dogs and of course I could not say no to Jolene. Scarlet and Sunbeam are
labradoodles that were picked up as strays by Animal Control here in Alabama. Their adoption fee is
$25 at this shelter and they are not spayed prior to being adopted so I knew it was only a matter
of time before someone nabbed them up and started a backyard puppy mill with them. I'm so glad that
the shelter knew that too and they actually agreed to hold them for us until we got a foster lined up.
The P litter of eight are actually why this transport is named after snakes.
They were found on the side of the road here in Alabama and the man brought them to the shelter.
They told him that you know technically these were considered an owner's surrender now and
they're closed for owner's surrenders because they just don't have room to take them.
But they went ahead and sent me pictures and asked me if I wanted them. I told them absolutely but
it would be the beginning of August before we could take them. So they told the finder that
they couldn't take them until the end of July when they knew a kennel would be open after some others
had left on transport. The guy agreed and then actually when it was time to bring them in he
told the shelter they were okay there and he would just keep them until transport. Well a few days
later he showed up at the shelter in a panic bright and early with all the puppies. He said he
went out to feed them that morning or it might have been the night before and he saw a cotton
mouth snake laying right next to them and it looked like it was sizing them up like it was about to
eat them. He said he grabbed them up as fast as he could because he just knew they were about to get
bit. He told the shelter that he would never forgive himself if something happened to one of them while
they were in his care when they could have been at the shelter instead. The R litter of eight
Boston Terrier pit mixes were pulled from a shelter in Tennessee. Another northern rescue that one of
our local rescue partners works with posted them on Facebook asking if anyone could take them because
they have no fosters available in their state and they're having to close intakes and stop
transports. So we were very happy to be able to help them. The F litter of nine were actually pulled
by another northern rescue but one of the puppies was attacked and needed to go to the vet and while
they didn't flat out say this I'm assuming they didn't want to pay for the medical bills so they
backed out and told the owner that they couldn't take them even though they were supposed to leave
later that week. The owner was so thankful that Wolftrap agreed to take them that she ended up
just taking the puppy to the vet and paying the vet bill herself. They came from a borderline
hoarding home. The owner has literally every kind of animal you can imagine. Tons of dogs, cats,
rabbits, chickens, everything. These puppies were eaten up with worms and fleas but the owner
surrendered all nine and is glad to be getting the mama spade. As for the cats, Eyelash Viper
was chased up under a car by a dog in Jessica's cousin's yard. The L litter of two were found
as strays with their mom several weeks ago by a cat rescuer. Their mama actually took in another
litter of three that she's still nursing right now and then she and her new kittens will be joining
Wolftrap too. The G litter of two were found outside a barber shop in a nearby town. They
don't have animal control or a shelter in that town but they called one of our fosters and they
asked us if we would take them if they agreed to foster them for us. They ended up only having to
hang on to them for a few days until we were able to get them on transport. The rest of the kittens
were pulled from the shelter here in Alabama and I got to do one of my favorite things ever,
shelter shop. If you haven't listened to the other episodes, that's when I show up at the
shelter and I walk through and pick who I'm leaving with that day. I'm like a kid in a candy shop.
So today I left the shelter with 11 kittens but I only sent 10 of them. One of them was fairly
sick so I took her from the shelter and Jessica is going to give her some TLC. Anaconda was brought
in with two litter mates who got adopted a few weeks ago. He's been by himself ever since and he
was out in the cages by the dog runs but he was so terrified out there that they actually brought
him into their quarantine room because it's much quieter. Viper and water snake were both owner
surrenders from different people but they had room in their cat room when the people brought them in
so they were able to take them. The M kittens were actually surrendered by their owner literally as I
was pulling into the shelter parking lot. They said they agreed to take them because they knew I
would leave with them a few minutes later and I did. The B litter of two were dumped at someone's
house and animal control was sent to pick them up. The C litter of three were actually born under a
shed at the shelter. A few months ago someone was trying to surrender a feral cat to the shelter
and when they came out to see how feral it was it got loose and they haven't been able to catch it.
Then when the kittens were only about three weeks old the mom has just stopped coming around
so they brought them into bottle feed them so that the snakes wouldn't eat them.
Well that is all the stories for today. Make sure you hit the subscribe button so you get
notified for next week's episode. We do not have a transport next week but I'm gonna do another
story time since y'all loved Dufus's story time so much last month. This will be another doozy.
It's a rough life but someone's gotta do it.