Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life! What a rough life it has been since the last time
we talked. We have had a lot of pretty serious issues come up the last few weeks, but for
the sake of those of you who are only here for the background stories, I will save our
personal drama for the end. So let's jump into today's transport. We were supposed to
have a cat transport several weeks ago, but it ended up being cancelled. In exchange,
we are doing two full vans of critters. If you catch me referring to everything in the
future tense, that's because transport hasn't even happened yet. It is actually still four
more days away, but I will not be there because I will hopefully be coming home from the hospital
that day with a sweet baby girl. So it is very possible that some of the animal stories
that I mentioned won't end up getting fosters and therefore won't be making it on the van
this transport, but they will make their way up sooner or later. And any stories that I
miss, I'll make sure to include them in the Facebook post on the fosters page. Okay, on
the first van, we have all of our Mississippi animals. Jackfruit? Oh wait, I should tell
you guys, there were so many animals that there literally were not enough letters for
any theme whatsoever. So the dogs are fruits and the cats are vegetables. So this is our
fruits and vegetables transport. Jackfruit was dumped at a kill shelter. One of our rescue
partners brought him home before the shelter even took him in. Dragon fruit was dropped
off in front of someone's home way, way out in the country. They were afraid a coyote
would eat him so they brought him in and looked for a rescue to take him. Fig was found on
the doorstep of a church. She stayed there in the same spot for two days till one of
our rescue partners sent a foster out there to get her. The K letter of two were found
dumped. The finder couldn't leave them on the back row that she found them on. So she
loaded them up and then begged one of our fosters to take them because her husband would not
let her bring them home. The H letter of two were born to a feral mom in the woods. They
wandered up to a school teacher's home the day before our huge terrible ice storm hit
back in January. They were able to coax them into their heated garage where they stayed
during the storm but they were very very skittish. They finally after several weeks warmed up
enough for our rescue partner to pick them up and send them to a foster who had more
time and more experience to work with them. They love being around other dogs and cats
and they have made great strides and trusting people. The B letter of three were surrendered
by a very old lady. She had kicked her deadbeat son out of the house and he left a puppy behind.
She had the shelter come pick it up and they of course asked us to take it so we went and
got her. A week later the son showed back up just to leave two more puppies on the porch.
The shelter went and got those two and of course called us. The animal control officer
said the house was so awful he doesn't know how anyone lives there. The windows were all
broken and lined with black garbage bags. The A letter of three are our parvo survivors
and they have such a pitiful story. They were found roaming around a dead end street in
town and the neighbors just assumed after a few days that they had been dumped so they
put them in a playpen in one of their yards just to keep them from being run over while
they tried to find someone that would take them. We actually got the call about them
the day of the last transport but we were adamant that we were not pulling anything
until the end of March. Well when Jessica sent me the video of them I knew we were going
to get them as soon as the transport van left that day. In the video you see these three
puppies pitiful definitely not feeling well at all and it looks like they're laying on
a blanket. It takes a few seconds but then you realize it's actually a dead puppy that
they're laying on. It was still warm so they were probably snuggling him for warmth because
it was still fairly cold that day. Jessica parvo tested them and got them started on
meds before helping some transport off that day and they ended up staying with her for
quite a while. Once they had fully recovered from their parvo spell we sent two of them
to doggie daycare and the other one to a foster. The M litter of six. Okay listen. Sometimes
I love her more than anyone in the world and sometimes I wonder why I even still partner
with her. I didn't pull these puppies. The owner contacted Jessica directly and asked
if we could help. So when I asked Jess for the background story for this podcast she
said and I quote owner surrenders. That's literally all I got out of her. So I guess
the owner surrendered them and I'm sure we're spaying the mom if there is one. The P litter
of seven. Their mama showed up to a family's house the day of the ice storm back in January.
The owners were certain that she belonged to somebody because she was so well mannered.
They took her in and they posted her on Facebook trying to find her family. After a few weeks
they realized she was probably dumped and then they figured out why she was pregnant.
In the meantime our rescue partner saw them post her on Facebook looking for a family
or a new home and after messaging them back and forth the finders changed their mind and
they decided to keep the mom and just give away the puppies for free on Facebook. But
thankfully they were finally convinced to surrender her and her puppies when the puppies
were just a week old. They are beautiful puppies but the mama is so ready for them to go.
Mama Poppy however will not be on this transport. She will be staying behind because she has
found her forever home with our rescue partner. They had just put their beloved black lab down
the week of Thanksgiving and they have just fallen head over heels in love with Poppy.
She will be spayed in a few weeks when she dries up and she will be spending the rest
of her days being pampered and spoiled. Okay as for the cats on the first van these are
all of our Mississippi cats. We have Yam an owner surrender that we tried to get last
year when she was just a kitten. The owner decided not to surrender her and was just
going to have her declawed instead despite us talking her trying our hardest to talk
her out of it and explaining how cruel and inhumane it is. She was still going to go
forward with it until she realized how much money it would cost and then she decided to
surrender her for real. Toes and all. The O litter of two again I will use a direct quote
from Jess when I asked what the background story is for these two kittens who she has
fostered for over a month she said well my two kittens are the spawns of Satan so I guess
they came directly from hell. Then she said I'm just kidding I do love them they were
owner surrenders. She is a woman a few words I tell you. The K letter of four are our bottle
babies two of them were found laying outside near the pound in a nearby town this is actually
the pound from my last podcast episode where they found one of the puppies dead in the
kennel and realized it had drowned when they were cleaning it. Anyways two were found outside
on the ground then later that day they found two more no mama cat was ever seen or anything
our bottle feeder took them in. The W letter of two were being given away on Facebook and
one of our rescue partners fosters message them and told them that she would foster them
until a rescue could get them on transport. The F letter of three were owner surrenders
the owner reached out to our rescue partners cat foster the day before our last transport
and asked if she would foster these until our rescue took them. The owners are so thankful
that the kittens are going to a rescue where they know they're going to find great homes
and that their mama cat is going to be spayed for free now. The G letter of three fondly
referred to as the camper cats. A lady lives in a camper and just tries her hardest to
save every cat she sees. She's got well over a dozen and has gotten all of the females
spayed on her own with her own money. She wanted to find good homes for these three boys where
they would have more room to run and play instead of the tiny camper that they were confined
to. She is still debating on surrendering any of the female kittens in the future. The
A letter of four are from the same home as the new fee and litter Lizzie Kaplan and her
kittens and good wife and her kittens from the January 3rd Matthew Perry transport and
Kansas City and her kitten from the January 12th city's transport. The mom was a stray
cat that wandered up and ended up being pregnant but the owner fell in love with the mama and
wanted to keep her but she knew that the kittens would be better off with our rescue so she
will be spayed in a few weeks. The S mama of the litter of five showed up on someone's
doorstep in a nearby town. They were hoping if they ignored her that she would just wander
off but the next morning she had kittens. They contacted our rescue partners and asked
if they would be able to help. Okay that's all for the first van. On the second van we
have all of the animals coming from our Alabama shelter friends. Unfortunately like usual we
don't have a lot of information on these animals but I will tell you what I know. Logan Barry
was found running in the park playing with a bunch of kids which I think is the cutest
thing. He was microchipped already but it wasn't registered so they had no way of contacting
any owners. They've held on to him since February waiting for someone to come forward
but no one did. The C litter of seven were posted on Facebook as free to a good home.
I'm not sure if they didn't get a lot of interest or if it was just too much of a hassle for
them but the very next day the owners dumped them in a cemetery where they knew that the
shelter would have to take them all in. There is currently talk of adding a litter of three
to this transport as well just in case we end up doing that. I'll tell you their story
real quick. I don't know what their litter letter... that's hard to say. I don't know
what their litter letter will be but if you have a litter of three little black pups this
is their story. They were found dumped in a field in a hard top pet taxi crate. We had
a horrible storm that night and the crate filled with freezing water. Several of them
drowned or maybe just froze to death. The crate was really low in the field and it
was hard to see it from the road so it's honestly a miracle that anyone even noticed
them. Two of the three that were still alive were just barely hanging on. Their temperatures
were so low it wasn't even registering on the thermometers and the vet couldn't even
get a drop of blood out of them to run any tests. It is truly a miracle that they survived.
Okay now for all the kittens. Lots and lots of kittens. The team mama was brought in
still pregnant. The owner said she was a stray but they also said something along the lines
of we just don't want to deal with her kittens so I don't know if she was really a stray
or their personal cat that got pregnant and then they just decided to surrender her. The
pee mama was a neighborhood stray that everyone just kind of took care of but when they realized
that she was pregnant they knew she needed better care and a safer place to stay so they
brought her to the shelter. The pee mama and her six kittens were owner surrenders. The
owner listed the reason as I don't want the cat or her kittens. The C mama was a stray
that wandered up to someone's yard and had kittens under his shed. He kept them for
a few weeks just so the mom could really settle in and take care of her babies but once they
all started roaming around he gathered them all up and brought them to the shelter. So
there will also be several adult single cats on this transport. Hopefully unfortunately
the shelter has so many. I don't know which ones will for sure get to go. It all depends
on who gets foster signed up for them but I will be sure to list any information that
I have on them in the Facebook post after the transport leaves. This is sure to be a
wild and crazy transport day. Not only is it the first transport after a very long break,
it's a double transport so twice the animals, twice the vans, twice the drivers, twice the
confusion and to top it all off it is the first transport I will not be at. It is currently
3.30 in the morning on Tuesday and I'm supposed to leave in just a few hours to go to the
hospital to hopefully have this baby girl because I will still be in the hospital or
just coming home that day. It is apparently too much trouble to ask the team to do the
transport in the hospital parking lot and just wheel me out in a wheelchair so I can
help them. So my team down here is just going to have to carry the torch without me. Let's
hope they don't get me fired. But that concludes the animal part of the podcast so if that
is all you came for you are free to go. But for those of you wondering what's been going
on down here, buckle up. A few months ago Jessica started getting really sick. There
were more nights than not when she would have to use her chihuahuas dog steps to physically
crawl into bed because it was too painful to climb into bed like a normal person. She
ended up finding out just a few weeks ago that she has rheumatoid arthritis and unfortunately
for me that means that she really needs to cut back on how much hard labor she's doing
and focus on healing and getting her pain under control. I of course am nine months
pregnant with a high risk pregnancy and just about every pregnancy ailment and condition
you can have. But right at the start of my eight month of pregnancy my mom went to the
doctor for what we thought was worms, seriously like dog worms. She had them run a fecal and
everything. She was so convinced but of course it was not worms, it's never worms. They thought
at first it might be a blockage so they gave her some medicine for that and told her to
come back in a few weeks if it wasn't better. She ended up going back to the doctor the
Monday before the last transport and he immediately sent her off for a CT scan. We ended up getting
the results the day after transport. It looked like ovarian cancer so we jumped on it and
we got her in at MD Anderson in Texas the very next week. They couldn't tell for sure
by the CT scan but they felt confident that it was either stage 4 ovarian cancer or stage
4 pancreatic cancer. Obviously those are two of the worst cancers you can get and we were
crushed. They sent her home about 10 days later after doing a whole bunch of tests with a
prescription to start ovarian cancer chemo later that week on Friday and they called
her Thursday night, the night before to tell her not to start the chemo after all and that
the biopsy results came back and shocked everyone. It ended up being her breast cancer. We thought
it had returned but after some sort of cell mapping or whatever crazy science they're
able to do they realized that when she had her double mastectomy in 2002 for her breast
cancer back then one cell got away during the surgery and it has been growing and spreading
undetected for 22 years. It is in her lymph nodes, her liver, pancreas, both ovaries,
gastric wall, bowel, peritoneal, two vertebrae in her back, both hips, and one of her femurs.
It is everywhere. Despite all of that we are so thankful for the answered prayer of it
being breast cancer. It's stage 4 breast cancer unfortunately but still so so much better
than what it almost was. So instead of the standard infusion chemo that is so awful and
so miserable she is doing oral chemo which still has many side effects that are no fun
at all but it is not nearly as toxic as regular chemo and we are just so thankful. So while
she's definitely taking a step back from all of her fostering and all of the running
around that she does for us we are just so glad that she's still going to be around for
quite a while to help out with all these critters and a baby now apparently. Alright that is
all the catching up I've got for you. I don't know what I'm more nervous about birthing
this baby in a few hours or a double transport without me being there. I guess by the time
you're hearing this we'll know how everything went. Hopefully everything went very smoothly
for both of them. Thank you for listening. I have missed y'all. It's a rough life but
someone's got to do it.