Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life. New year, new me, right? So I am trying a new strategy
with this whole podcasting thing. My goal is to have the transport episodes done before
I even leave to Mississippi to do the transport. That way, y'all don't have to wait for me to get
home so late at night, eat dinner, take a nap, go through all the pictures, record the episodes,
and then upload it to the Fosters page. Fingers crossed that this actually works out.
So the first transport of 2024 is off with a bang. We've got 56 total critters on board,
so let's get started. The theme was Matthew Perry, and I'll be honest, when I started doing names
for that theme, there was not 56 critters that I was going to have to name. But by the time so many
were added, I had gotten so many names done, I couldn't scrap the theme and just start over.
So some of these names are a bit of a stretch. End of longing was an owner surrender.
We got a message asking if we could help treat an adult dog and a puppy for sarcoptic mange.
Remember that's the super itchy, super contagious to other dogs and people mange.
When Jessica was dropping off the medicine, she just casually mentioned that if she decided to get
rid of the puppy, we would be happy to take her. Apparently this was not even really her puppy,
it just wandered up and she was taking care of it. A few days later, she messaged us back and said
she thought about it and she realized the puppy would be better off with us than living in her
carport. She kept her for a few more days until her mange wasn't contagious anymore,
and we sent her to one of our fosters down here just a few days before Christmas.
Remastered the lion's share. Wandered up to someone's yard in the middle of nowhere. It had
been so cold here at night, it was like down in the 20s. We went and got her immediately, so she
didn't freeze to death. We held her for over a week waiting for an owner to come forward, but no
one did. And this home was out in the middle of nowhere. She was definitely just dropped off.
Justin Trudeau, if you are wondering who the heck that is and how it relates to Matthew Perry,
turns out it's a kid he beat up when he was younger who then ended up being the prime
minister of Canada. I'm telling you all, I was heartin' for names by the end of this.
JT was posted on Facebook by his owners. Apparently the mama dog and the siblings died in a house fire.
When our rescue partner got there to pick him up, she said it was most definitely a drug related
house fire. Oscar Madison wandered into someone's yard and just never left. She asked all the neighbors,
but after a few days realized that it was very likely that he was dumped. After posting him on
Facebook looking for a new home or rescue to take him, one of our rescue partners grabbed him up,
sent him to one of her fosters where he has been for the last month.
The B letter of two were dumped at a nursing home in a nearby town. The employees posted
their picture on Facebook trying to find the owners, but when it was obvious that they were
abandoned there, one of our rescue partners went and picked them up and has fostered them ever since.
The N letter of two were owner surrenders. After they were posted on Facebook as free to a good home,
the owner was very excited to surrender them in exchange for a spay voucher for his mama dog.
The A letter of three were found in a blue tub on the side of the road by an elderly couple.
They just happened to stop and look inside and they were so shocked to find three tiny little puppies
in there. They brought them home and they contacted someone who fosters for us the day before our last
transport last year. We told them that it was already full, there's no way we could add them on,
but if they could keep them for a few more days, we could get them set up with a foster and then
send them to Virginia in January. They held on to them until a foster was found and these have
turned out to be the sweetest puppies ever. They are so thankful to be going from thrown away puppies
in Mississippi to finding their forever homes in Virginia. The P letter of three were owner
surrenders. The mama dog wandered up to their house and they realized immediately that she was
super pregnant. She had 11 babies but eight of them died. We're pretty sure that they froze to
death. When the puppies were five weeks old, we went ahead and got them set up in our foster care
so that we could make sure that these puppies lived. We gave the owners a spay voucher for them
because they are wanting to keep her. The T letter of eight are actually a letter of nine.
They were posted on Facebook when they were just barely two weeks old. Their mama dog had disappeared
and the owners couldn't get them to eat from a bottle. They had gone between 36 and 48 hours
with no food before our amazing bottle feeder stepped up to take them. Eight of them took to the
bottle perfectly when she got them but one of them was having a harder time. It just so happened
that this foster was fostering Linda, the pregnant dog that I pulled from the shelter over Thanksgiving
and her 10 puppies. Because it was struggling so bad, she stuck it in with Linda's litter
and Linda took it right in. He has thrived ever since. However, Linda and all of her puppies got
pneumonia a few days later. We think Linda got it when she was at the shelter and she had just been
trying to keep it at bay but nursing puppies just took everything out of her and she just couldn't
fight it off anymore because one of the orphan puppies was in there with her crew. It ended up
getting pneumonia too. Everyone is totally fine and healthy now but they still have just a few
more days of antibiotic to finish up. Otherwise, we would have sent the orphan puppy with his real
litter today. The M letter of eight were owner surrenders from a lady we've taken puppies for
before. She contacted our rescue partner again when her new dog had puppies. When our rescue
partner was there vaccinating the puppies, the owner started telling her about all the cats she
had inside her house that were about to or had just had kittens. So she told her, you know,
we would love to help you with all your kittens and your mama cats too and she started bawling.
She hugged her, she cried, she cried some more. These people are so thankful for our help and we
are so thankful to be able to help them. And with that, let's get into the cat stories. The L mama
and her four kittens and the G mama and her two kittens are from the same house as the M letter
of eight puppies. There's also another mama and kittens that we're taking from her today,
but they're just going to go and foster care down here until the transport next week. And there's
also a mama that she wants to keep, but will be surrendering her kittens in a few more weeks
when they're old enough. From what we can tell, it seems like this owner just takes in animals in
need, but doesn't really have the means to have them spayed or neutered. So when they start reproducing,
she of course gets very overwhelmed very quickly by all these new animals. These mama cats were
all just cats she had taken in and kept inside, but weren't her actual cats that she was attached to
and wanted to keep. The F letter of three actually have a mama who is hanging back with us until
next transport. She is the sister of view master from the November 18 toys transport. So these F
kittens are cousins to the three V kittens from the November 11th drink transport.
Remember, this is the owner who was somewhat reluctant to surrender the kittens in November,
but when he heard what great lives they would have, he asked if we would take the mom too.
So the next week when we got view master, their mom, he asked us about taking her sister,
the F mama and her kittens too. The F mama would have been on transport today, but she has a super
wonky leg. It's very strange. So we're going to get her checked out at our vet this week to make
sure it's nothing major and more importantly that it's nothing painful before we just load her up
and send her on her merry way. So hopefully she will be joining the rest of her family
on next week's transport. The H letter of two were free to a good home on Facebook. One of our
rescue partners, Foster's, saw them on Facebook and snatched them up before they could fall into
the wrong hands. All of the other cats on today's transport are from our veterinarian partner. So
the W letter of two were born to a feral mom under someone's trailer. The owner trapped the mom and
gave her away before she even contacted the vet, but then contacted the vet to see if she would
take these two kittens. They were feral at the time. So she sent them to one of her friends
who worked with them for over a month to get them friendly. The D letter of two were from a shelter
in Jackson, Tennessee. They, some of their litter mates and their mom were going to be put to sleep
when the vet here pulled them. They were only two weeks old. The mom and the other siblings have
been adopted, but these two never were. The S mama and her four kittens were owner surrenders.
The owner contacted the vet in May of this year when the mama was pregnant with her first letter.
She surrendered the kittens but didn't want to have the mom spade. The owner contacted her in
November and asked if she could bring her in to be spayed then. When the vet looked at her,
she could tell she was super pregnant and way too far along to be spayed. So the owner decided to
just surrender the mom then before the kittens were even born. The C mama and her three kittens
were found at a gas station on Christmas Eve. The finders were a friend of the vet and they
contacted her about what they needed to do. They told her one of the kittens was dead in the parking
lot from being hit by a car just a few minutes earlier. The vet told them load them up and bring
them to her that night. With that, it is now time for me to head on over to transport and make sure
all of these critters really show up. It's a rough life but someone's got to do it.
Okay wait, I am back from transport and I have an update. We actually did not send the F kittens
or their mom. The owner could not get off work in time to bring them so he is going to bring them
sometime this week so that we can for sure have them for next transport. So we actually only had
53 total animals on the van today. Okay, time to go.