Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life.
Shoo!
I really hit the nail on the head when I named this podcast Rough Life.
It is currently 1am, technically the day after transport, but I haven't gone to bed yet so
I'm still calling it the same day.
I actually had to take a second before I started this podcast and take a really big yawn before
I could start.
I would love to be getting into bed right now, but Jacqueline, our foster coordinator
who I'm sure you all know, told me that she likes to listen to the transport episode on
her way to intake every transport.
So in honor of Jacqueline, I'm recording this tonight instead of in the morning, but I want
everyone to quiz her in the morning to see if she really listens or if she was just kidding.
Anyways, transport was an absolute train wreck today.
So many last minute add-ons, which we're always thankful for, but oh my goodness it always
makes things so much more chaotic.
And then we had a litter that got cut because they showed up and they were too sick to go.
So much going on this week.
But we've got 31 pups and 6 kittens on this transport with some crazy stories, so let's
get into it.
New England Hurricane was found as a stray in a neighboring town.
We actually found out at transport today that they think they found his brother too just
a few days ago, so he's going to be coming on the next transport.
Katrina was found at the end of Jessica's driveway earlier this month.
Jessica was leaving for a weekend vacation and texted me and my mom to tell us that there
was a puppy in her driveway.
My mom went out there and was able to catch her.
When Jessica got home, several days later, there was another puppy that we believe is
this one's brother at the end of her driveway.
Jessica went in her house to get a leash, and when she came back out, it was gone.
No one has seen it since.
And no one claimed this puppy either, and it was just hanging out at the bottom of Jessica's
driveway.
Jessica has a very long driveway, so we think it was probably dumped there and was just
hanging around waiting for its family to come back.
We're still hoping the brother will show up soon too.
Rita was found in the woods last month, but because she had ringworm on her, she had to
stay at Jessica's in her quarantine room until she got over it.
When we got her last month, she had a super bad laceration on her neck where it looked
like she had been tied up on a chain that was way too tight for her little neck.
Harvey was picked up by animal control when he was seen hiding at an abandoned house in
town.
No one ever came forward for him, so we nabbed him up out of that shelter.
The bee litter of two were found wandering on a road by a sheriff's officer.
His aunt is actually one of my rescue friends.
She runs a rescue in a neighboring town, and we have worked together for years.
Unfortunately, because of lack of northern fosters and adopters, her rescue has gone
bankrupt and she just closed the doors a few weeks ago.
When her nephew asked her if she would take the puppies, she told him no.
Thankfully, he found a friend who would foster them for us until we were able to get them
on transport today.
The S litter of four were owner surrenders by someone who wanted us to take the puppies
so she could have the momma dogs paid for free because she couldn't afford to do it.
When our rescue partners went by to vaccinate and deworm the puppies, they were shocked
at how disgusting the home and yard were.
The puppies were absolutely crawling with fleas.
They planned to just vaccinate and leave, but they ended up taking the puppies with
them because it was so awful.
And to make this story even worse, these four puppies were supposed to go on the last transport,
but we didn't get enough fosters so they were held back.
In the three weeks since then, one puppy broke its leg and another puppy was attacked and
had to go to the vet for stitches.
We are so lucky all four of these puppies survived this three week layover, I guess,
until today's transport.
The A litter of eight were a last minute add-on when a litter of four showed up too sick to
go.
We sent them back and they'll be going to the vet tomorrow.
Luckily, we were able to swap them out with another litter.
Don't you love transport math?
Just a litter of four and add a litter of eight.
Their mama wandered up to someone's house a few months ago.
They already had two dogs and they tried to just shoo her off, but she was so sweet and
so friendly that they all fell in love with her.
They took her to the vet to be spayed and they found out she was already pregnant, so they
just took her back home.
She started venturing over to the neighbor's house to visit and the neighbors thought she
was a stray dog, so they took her off and they dumped her several miles away.
The family that was taking care of her, I'll call them her owners even though they technically
didn't really want her, but they were devastated.
They posted flyers all over looking for her and a few days later, they got a call that
someone had found her.
She had been staying in a cow pasture and was covered in manure.
They took her home, cleaned her up, and a few days later, she had her puppies.
They are so thankful we took all the puppies and that will make sure that they get great
homes, but they are even more thankful to get a spay voucher to get her spayed for real
this time.
The eye litter of eight puppies were actually supposed to go with their mom on the August
9th snakes transport, but we didn't get enough fosterage for them to go, so we held them
back.
It actually ended up working out though because their mom took in two newborn puppies that
were found tied up in a plastic bag last week.
I'll tell you more about those when they come up in a few weeks, but this mama was posted
on Facebook by a neighbor of the owner.
She said this was her second pregnancy and the owner killed all of the puppies in the
first litter because he didn't want to deal with finding them homes.
He told the owner he didn't care what she did with the dog, but if she gave birth there,
he would kill all those puppies too.
She ended up actually being pulled by another rescue.
I had thought about pulling her, but we were already so overfull I didn't want to overwhelm
us even more and overcommit, but then one of my fosters down here agreed to foster her
for this other rescue.
So I reached out to the other rescuer because she is a good friend of mine, and she was
like, um, no, I actually have no northern rescue lined up to take them, and I have no
idea what I'm going to do with them.
So she was so relieved when I told her I would just take them all.
The momadog's name is originally Missy, but I'm not sure if she even knew that was her
name.
She gave birth the same day she got to my foster's house, so it was literally in the nick of time.
She's been a really good mom, but she's definitely over it now that they have teeth.
I think she's thinking, where's that man that comes and gets all these sharp toothed
puppies away from me?
She is much happier with these two itty bitty newborn puppies.
Lossy and her five puppies are from the shelter here in Alabama.
She was picked up as a stray actually several months ago.
They had no idea she was pregnant, and she might have even gotten pregnant at the shelter.
But they came in one morning and they were shocked to see she had had puppies overnight.
She has been the best little mama and she was so sweet with the shelter workers when
they would pick up her puppies when they were newborns.
She would super gently put her mouth on the puppies to try and take them back like, I
don't mean to be rude, but did you wash your hands?
Like, these are my newborn babies.
Please don't get them sick.
Like those buttons that people put on their baby's stroller nowadays about like not touching
or kissing their babies.
And I was getting her out at transport at the dog house so that I could walk her and
let her go to the bathroom.
She was up on a top crate and we were both kind of looking at each other like, how am
I going to get her down from here?
And she looked at me and I held my arms up and she jumped into my arms like, like we
both just like telepathically knew that that's what she needed to do.
I love her.
She was one of my favorites on this load.
The L mama and her five puppies are from the same shelter here in Alabama.
The mama is actually the mama of the L puppies from the June 7th Ted Lasso transport and
the June 28th Harry Potter transport.
Remember those were those five puppies that were so horribly sick with Giardio when I
went to the shelter just to drop off vaccines.
I couldn't leave them there and I ended up taking six of them home with me.
One died like as soon as I got home.
And that's when I found out there were actually originally nine in this litter and four had
died total.
Three of the ones that I had were so insanely sick that I ended up taking them to the vet
for a distipper test and thankfully it was negative.
I don't know how they ended up at the shelter or why their mom wasn't brought in then, but
animal control actually went and picked her up just a few weeks ago with her newborn puppies.
They were two days old when she was brought in.
I don't know if he took her because of her living conditions or if the shelter workers
just knew how much I loved her first litter and how badly I wanted to get their mama out
of there too that they just went and got her.
Either way, I'm so thankful they got her and that we were able to get her and her babies
out here before they got super sick too and that she is never going to have to have another
litter again.
Oh my goodness.
I cannot believe she had two in one summer.
As for the cats, Charlie was pulled from the Alabama shelter when I went their last
transport.
He was all alone in a crate in the isolation room because he was so sick.
I brought him home and Jessica has been nursing him back to health.
Mitch was found in a parking lot of an apartment complex by someone we've taken animals for
before.
He told us that the grandmother was run over by a car and killed a few days later, but
I'm not sure how he would even know who the grandmother was of this kitten and he's actually
told us that story before about another kitten, so I'm not totally sure that that's a true
story.
The D litter of two kittens were found as strays when they were just barely weaned from
their mama.
Someone found them and took them home to find new homes for them.
They lived in the back room of their house the entire summer though because she couldn't
find anyone to take them.
The G litter of two kittens were found abandoned when they still had their eyes closed.
The mama of the L kittens from the snake transport on August 9th actually took these
kittens in and nursed them.
She was supposed to come on transport today too, but the lady who found them all has just
fallen in love with the mama, so we will spay her and she'll just stay with her.
Okay, that's a wrap.
That's everybody's stories.
I'm pretty sure this is only like 10 minutes later for you guys, but this is actually like
an hour later for me because of how many times I get tongue tied and I have to stop and
like giggle and then cut it out and then redo it.
So I am very sleepy now.
I'm so thankful that you all listen and I'm so thankful that you guys like to hear about
the stories and where my sweet babies all come from because they have, oh my goodness,
they have the craziest lives before they even get to you guys and start their new lives.
But that's all for tonight and I promise there is an episode coming next week that you guys
are gonna love.
It's a good story time and I will get my life together and I will do it.
I promise.
It's a rough life, but someone's gotta do it.