Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life and Happy New Year!
Well as 2023 has come to a close, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at some
of our favorites from the year, but before we get into that, let's talk numbers.
This is my favorite part of the last transport of the year, but actually I crunched the numbers
all throughout the year anyway.
So the total number of animals that we sent to WolfDrap in 2023 was 1254.
That's crazy.
We sent a total of 839 puppies, 92 adult dogs, 283 kittens, and 40 adult cats.
We did 25 total transports with an average of 49 animals per transport, and this is
my favorite one.
We averaged 3.6 adult dogs per transport.
We beat 2022's numbers by 80, and that was mostly because y'all went kitten crazy for
some reason this year, and we sent so many kittens.
2023 was also the year that I started this podcast, yay!
And I'll be honest, I have stuck with it way longer than I really thought that I would.
I have done 31 different episodes and have over 4000 listeners.
That's insane.
The majority of my listeners come from Virginia, specifically Ashburn, Alexandria, Falls Church,
and Fairfax, but we also have quite a few listeners in Belgium.
Yeah, like the country.
And then just a handful from Canada, Netherlands, Greece, and one listener from China.
Now, tell me that is not the most wild thing you've ever heard in your life.
For this end of the year wrap up episode, I thought it would be fun to ask the whole
team for their favorite animals from the year, and this is what everyone had to say.
So Jacqueline, our foster coordinator, she actually had two.
She said, my favorite adoption story from 2023 actually began on the last transport
of 2022.
We had brought up an owner-surrender Boston Terrier dog on the November 29th 2022 hockey
transport.
Her name was Top Shelf, Poppy, and she had five newborn puppies.
Unfortunately, multiple puppies froze to death here in Mississippi because the weather changed
so quickly before they were able to get them up on transport.
I personally fostered Top Shelf and her puppies.
Plus, I had this little scruffy dog that was anywhere from six months to a year.
We had no idea how old he really was.
His name was Wilson.
He had two meet and greets come through, but the mom and dog wasn't on our website just
yet because she was still nursing her puppies.
When the first meet and greet arrived, Poppy stole the show.
They walked into my home and she immediately said, okay, you are my people.
I am your dog.
We will be happy forever and ever.
This scruffy little dog completely ignored them.
When they left, I immediately texted them and said, I know you were here and you were
interested in Wilson, but any chance you were interested in Poppy instead because I really
feel like she chose you.
The family adopted her at our first adoption event in January of this year, and I just
got a Christmas picture of her living her best spoiled life that she deserves.
Wilson ended up being adopted by the second meet and greet family, and he was way more
interested in them than he was the first family.
He needed to show them all of his toys when they first got there.
Rhinoceros viper is my number two.
He is a Boston Terrier pit mix from the August 9th Snakes Transport.
He arrived with his siblings and he was so sick.
He had a terrible upper respiratory infection.
Dr. Burton recommended that he not go into a foster home because he was so sick, so she
loaded me up with all the medications that he needed.
Once he was healthy enough, he went to one of our amazing foster homes who kept him for
months and months before he was adopted to the best family at the public adoption event.
The mom and the teenage daughter walked up to Rhino Viper and the teenage daughter declared
that, Mom, this is my dog.
They are loving life together and I may have cried a little bit.
Paola had a hard time deciding who her overall favorite was because she takes home most,
if not all, of the parbo puppies and nurses them back to health.
And anyone that has fostered a sick animal before knows that lasting bond you have with
that animal after that.
But she also really loved Tubby Todd from the April 22nd Baby Brands Transport, who
was also Jesse's number one favorite.
And if you know Jesse at all, you know he loves orange cats, so this was no surprise.
But Todd was a super weird case.
The shelter here in Alabama picked him up as a stray and one of his hips and legs had
been completely shaved bald, like he had just had surgery.
No owners ever came forward and no vets in the area remembered shaving a cat like that.
A few weeks later we sent him to Wolf Trap and Dr. Burton took X-rays of the hip to figure
out why he had been shaved like that.
And she saw he had no hip.
Like it was totally gone.
We had to have a specialist come look at him and everything.
They think he was hit by a car and had surgery before even coming to Wolf Trap.
Todd stayed at the hospital as a foster until the end of June when he was finally adopted
and he is still a patient at Wolf Trap, so the staff gets to see him for all of his appointments.
Grace took zero time writing me back with her favorite from 2023.
She said, while I love all of the animals that came up, hands down was Caramelly from
the pasta transport.
That whole litter was great, even with their slight proclivity towards car sickness.
I only got to take Caramelly home for one night, but if I wasn't full of animals already,
I would have kept her.
She was absolutely perfect.
The family who adopted her is incredibly lucky.
I could also say the K litter of kittens from the April 22nd baby brand transport, seeing
as I ended up adding two of them to my menagerie and couldn't imagine life without them.
Jenny had a favorite cat and a favorite dog.
She said, Mama nubtail, yellow-orange from the March 8th Korean transport, and her four
precious babies would be my favorite cat.
I'm used to the bottle babies, and when we couldn't find a foster for her, of course
I took her.
She was the perfect first pregnant mama cat that I took, and she spoiled me.
The only hiccup was when she decided to give birth to her first kitten in the litter box.
So I woke up to a screaming kitten covered in litter.
She ended up being adopted with one of her babies, but that mama was great.
She even took an orphan kittens later because she was such a perfect mom.
My favorite dog would have to be the brown doodle, dulcimer, from the April 12th Dolly
Parton transport.
Mostly because we were able to come full circle with the band, the head and the heart.
They were interested in a previous litter last year, but the timing just wasn't right.
So when the Aussie doodles were sent up, I figured it wouldn't hurt to send them a text,
and they were like, timing is actually perfect this time around.
That whole litter was perfect, and they were just precious in general.
As for Dr. Burton, in case you didn't know, she actually had a foster fail this year.
Mia from the September 23rd Movies Transport is now officially a Burton.
However, when asked who her favorite animal of 2023 was, B did not say Mia.
She actually said, meet the Santas, a Maine Coon kitten that I sent on December 2nd Hallmark
Transport.
We ended up taking him home from Transport to keep an eye on him.
He had a very strange meow, almost like he was horse and was whispering.
We had had him in foster care down here for a week, so we knew he was healthy and eating
and active.
So B diagnosed him with laryngitis, renamed him Wisp, and took him home for the night.
And that's when things went crazy.
Wisp got so insanely sick the next day, we were all convinced that he had rabies.
He was foaming at the mouth uncontrollably, he wouldn't eat anything, and he almost seemed
like he couldn't walk.
After an entire day of monitoring him, running different tests, and trying different medications,
nothing was working and everything was pointing to rabies.
For those who don't know, rabies is incurable and there is no test for it that you can do
on an animal that's alive.
The only way to test an animal is to euthanize it, cut its head off, and send it to a lab
to be tested.
How barbaric is that?
Like it's 2024, can we not come up with something better now?
Anyway, Wisp was about 10 minutes away from certain death when Dr. Burton tried to give
him some anti-nausea medication.
He flipped out and she ended up just shooting a little bit of it in his mouth.
Literally seconds later, he was totally fine.
Like eating, playing, purring, everything.
We were shocked.
And he's been totally fine ever since.
He still has a weird meow, but apparently that's just his voice.
He has since gone to one of our veterinarian partners to be fostered and there are more
than likely foster failing with him, but that was such a wild day for Dr. Burton, I don't
think she will ever forget Wisp.
She even said, I think I just found a cure for rabies.
As for our team down here, Mama Becky had two favorites.
Hank, Hey Duke from the June 2nd National Trails Transport, and Mad Eye Moody from the
June 28th Harry Potter Transport.
This is what she said about them.
Out of the 166 that I fostered this year, Hank the Hound Dog and Winky the Bad Eye Puppy
are the ones I miss the most.
I usually have large litters of tiny puppies so they have to stay in my dog pen or the
shed since they're not fully vaccinated.
But Hank and Winky were vaccinated and could walk through the woods with me and I loved
that.
Hank just appeared in our closed garage one morning.
He must have wandered in the night before and we shut the door at bedtime and didn't
even notice him.
He was sleeping in a huge pile of blankets that I was going through that had been donated
to us.
Winky and her siblings were posted on Facebook.
I knew no one would pull the litter because one pup had such a bad eye so I begged for
us to pull them.
I thought some eye ointment would cure it but it didn't.
Her eye was so swollen and painful.
After several weeks we decided it couldn't be saved and our local vet recommended having
it removed.
From the minute it was out she was a new dog.
She wasn't in pain anymore and you could tell.
I'm so thankful that these two have found such good homes.
When I asked Jessica to tell me who her favorite was from 2023 she said, can you just look
at what I wrote on Facebook and just say that.
So here we go.
Her favorite was Eliza, orange juice on the November 11th drinks transport.
Jessica wrote this about her on Facebook.
Sometimes animal rescue is rewarding and sometimes it's gut wrenching.
Sometimes it's both.
This girl leaves for Virginia tomorrow and I'm fine with a crying face so she was definitely
not fine.
When we first got Eliza she had to be trapped and she was sent to the vet for a spay.
I was planning to send her back where she came from.
She was feral and she had been for years and she's a healer.
It's not that I don't love the herding breed.
I had just had one for 14 years and I know how stubborn and high maintenance they are
but I never expected this girl to be very workable.
They told me at the vet that she was super sweet and I'll be honest my first thought
was well dang because I had no idea what I was going to do with another adult.
They boarded her until I had a spot available and then she spent a week in my kennel.
She went on walks with my pack and got to know everybody.
She got along so well with them that we decided to bring her inside.
There's a pretty lengthy list of requirements to be met before you get to come inside with
my old lazy dogs.
One of whom is 8 pounds and completely blind.
Eliza has been with us for a little over 5 weeks now which is a long time in my little
rescue world.
She's part of the family, she loves my dogs, she knows the routine and she will do anything
to get close enough to be petted.
She also loves to chase a tennis ball.
Notice I didn't say she fetches a tennis ball so she and I both get our exercise.
I've had a lot of dogs love me over the years but none any more than this girl.
I have no doubt she'll find the perfect family and I'll be a distant memory soon but it's
going to be a little bit of a transition for her and me.
Jessica did leave out the part though where we were afraid that they were both getting
too attached to each other and that she wouldn't be able to give her up and send her on transport
so she came and spent a week with me at my house before going to Virginia.
On her second day at my house I was vacuuming the rug which apparently I was not supposed
to do but Jessica didn't tell me.
When Eliza went out the doggy door, crawled under the fence and took off.
We looked everywhere for her for 24 hours, literally 24 hours straight.
Even Jessica came out and tried to help us look for her.
There was no sign of her so we just gave up.
She was a feral dog her whole life and I knew that we would never catch her if she didn't
want to be caught.
About 36 hours later it was pouring rain and freezing cold out.
My dogs were on the couch with me and I heard the doggy door open so I look around, I do
a head count and I held my breath as I walked into the dining room where our doggy door
is and there was Eliza soaking wet and shivering looking up at me like I realized I made a
terrible mistake leaving.
Can I come back?
And then she was a totally perfect dog after that.
She ended up getting adopted and she is living her best life in Virginia now.
As for me, I have had many favorites this year.
My favorite cat was James Dean Daydream from the July 12th Taylor Swift Transport.
My favorite litter was Dolly and her D litter of 9 doodles from the April 12th Dolly Parton
Transport.
My favorite sick puppies were the L litter of 5, 3 of them went on the June 7th Ted Lasso
Transport and then the sickest 2 were on the June 28th Harry Potter Transport.
My favorite story was the S litter of 9 from the July 12th Taylor Swift Transport.
They were the ones that were dumped in the woods by a man who stopped at a liquor store
on his way home to drown his sorrows and when he told the cashier she refused to sell him
anything tore him a new one and an hour later he came back from the woods with all the puppies
and left them with her.
The closest we came to foster failing was Poppy.
It's me, hi, from the July 12th Taylor Swift Transport.
My favorite glow up was definitely Chicky Nuggy, Baby Yoda from the February 1st Star
Wars Transport.
My most memorable, we'll say, would be Doofus, Poopay from the June 7th Ted Lasso Transport,
but my overall favorite should come as a surprise to no one, my sweet Bubby.
Although I actually wouldn't call him my favorite, I had no desire to keep him, but
he is the one that I am the most proud of.
I worked so hard to keep that baby alive, literal blood sweat and tears went into him,
countless sleepless hours, countless prayers, countless milestones met, watching him die
in my arms, and then somehow miraculously come back to life as something that I will
never forget.
It also took years off of my life, but he really did prepare me for motherhood before
I even realized it.
I mean, I used him as my pregnancy announcement for goodness sakes, he has to be my favorite.
But what a year 2023 has been.
We are already gearing up for our first transport of 2024, and let me tell you, there are some
super cute fluffies on this one, so if you haven't signed up to foster yet, make sure
you get on that as soon as possible.
We have got a busy year ahead of us if we are going to beat 2023's numbers.
It's a rough life, but someone's got to do it.