Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life. No baby today, so hopefully this episode will be a lot quieter.
I hope you all had a great 4th of July. It is actually one of my favorite holidays because
it means we are finally to the halfway point in puppy season. It definitely will get a lot worse
before it gets better, but at least it's the halfway mark and it's halfway over. Speaking of
4th of July, that is, if you hear any booming in the background, that is my neighbor shooting off
illegal fireworks. Because why would they not at 10 o'clock at night? Anyways, let's get into today's
story. The theme is things you can find inside of Lowe's. Yes, like the home improvement store.
I'll tell you why I chose this theme later. First up are our singles. Doorknob is my favorite on
this load. This is one of the few puppies this year that I actually tracked down and made sure we got.
I'll admit I've been a little busy this year with the whole birthing a baby and mom having stage 4
cancer thing, but when we got the call about this puppy the first time I immediately fell in love
with her. She had wandered up to someone's house and they couldn't even get her to move. They thought
she was dead and they thought she was super old also. So they messaged us late at night and when
we replied the next morning saying we could take it, you know, like what's your address, we'll come get it,
they said it disappeared in the middle of the night. I was sure it had either gone eaten or it
wandered off to die, but then a few days later we got a message from someone else. The dog had wandered
into her yard. Again, we said first thing in the morning we'd be out there and we'd come get it
and again she was gone before the people read our message. Finally two whole weeks later, no more
sightings of this dog. Someone messaged us about her and they said she had been at their house for
five days and the first few days they couldn't even get near her because she was so terrified.
Finally she let them get close enough so that they could give her some flea and tick medicine
and give her some dewarmer. Once again it was about 11 p.m. when we got the message and I
begged, begged, begged that sweet woman to confine her until we could come and get her in the morning.
I told her I had been waiting and wanting her for over two weeks. The lady also works at one of my
favorite restaurants in town so she knows me. So she brought her in her house that night to make
sure that she would be there for us the next day. She was so pitiful even after being well taken care
of for five days. She had a rain rot on her legs, she was eaten up with parasites and she was so
afraid of people. But two weeks with Mama Becky and she is doing so much better. I am just so,
so happy that we got her and I'm so happy that she's gonna have the best life in Virginia.
Insulation was dumped at Jessica's sister's house. It is technically the city limits but the
shelter actually refused to pick it up. They said they would have to euthanize a dog if they brought
another one in. So we got it set up with a foster because Jessica's sister is a loser and she doesn't
foster for us because she works full-time as a nurse practitioner and she has two kids and a dog
and a husband and a life and apparently you can't foster when you have all those things.
Paint was found on the side of the road in a nearby town before the last transport but the
finder agreed to foster her until this transport. The L letter of three were owner surrenders.
Someone pulled the mama and these three babies out from under an abandoned trailer when the puppies
were just a few days old. The mama was injured and after a vet visit was determined that she had
been shot but the finder had just fallen in love with the mama and so she spent thousands of dollars
with an orthopedic vet to fix her leg. When the puppies were just beginning to open their eyes
she realized that something was definitely wrong with one of the puppies eyes and after he had
another vet visit it was determined that it was blind in one eye. Dr. Burton is pretty sure she's
going to have to have it removed and they will probably do that during space surgery. The finder
is an elderly lady who asked us to promise her if something happens to her we will take the
mama dog and make sure she goes to the best home. The C letter of four actually became a
letter of four with their mama. See it's actually a good thing that I waited solely to do the episode
today or y'all would have missed this whole story. Somehow and I don't even know how all of this got
so confused and so lost. I don't even know. Somehow this mama was never mentioned to us until this
afternoon like literally two hours before the van left. They were from a severe hoarding and
neglect case. The owner died and just left all of these animals behind. The only reason people
even found out about them is a few weeks ago actually back in May it was quite a while ago.
One of the puppies more than likely from the splitter was found dead on the side of the highway
right by this house. So a rescuer in another town stopped and moved it over to the grass so you
know if owners were looking for it they would see it and they could bury it if they wanted to
to. You know so cars weren't just running over it left and right. The rescuer posted it on
Facebook that they had found this puppy dead in case anyone was looking for it and the neighbors
of this puppy's former owner commented and explained that it was from an abandoned house
with a bunch of puppies and dogs and no one was living there anymore to take care of them.
The rescuer went over there to bring food and dewormer and take pictures to get things moving.
At the time there were nine total puppies. I don't know if that's counting the original
dead puppy or not but by the time they got to me there were only four live puppies removed from
that home. For whatever reason the rescuer that was taking this on just had the mama of these
puppies spayed. She was staying with a foster for four days to recover and get her stood
for four more days. She had been there for a while she's staying there for more days
and then she's getting her stitches out and then the plan was just send her back to the abandoned
home where there is no one there to take care of her or feed her. Please hear me when I say this.
Sometimes that is the only viable option for these mamas. Sometimes they are so feral that
that is the only thing that they want and they would never even be happy in a home. But this mama
is so sweet and so gentle. She absolutely will love being an inside dog and a part of the family.
There was no reason she should have been sent back there to fend for herself especially when
they worked so hard to find a rescue to take on the puppies and especially because she has a bb
lodged in her mouth from being shot in the face. That is absolutely not somewhere she should go
back. She's also heartworm and a leaky positive so if she didn't die from being hit by a car
or being shot again she would have a very slow and very agonizing death without being treated for
both of those. I am just so glad that we found out about her when we did. I made an emergency post
on our fosters page and so many people volunteered to take her even if it was just for a day or two.
Just so that she could make the trip today with her puppies. She has no idea how good their lives
are about to get and I still don't know what happened to the other adult dogs. I know there
was another one that looked like this mama. It might have been her sister or brother um
and she or he ended up being run over and killed but I think there were still at least two or three
more. I don't know. I'm still trying to track them down. The R litter of eight were posted on Facebook
and one of our rescue partners that we work with all the time, Hope, just could not help herself.
She jumped at the chance to pull them. The owner told her that two were already spoken for but she
could have the rest but of course she worked her magic and she explained what wonderful homes these
animals were going to get and the owner decided to just give them all to us and get her mama spayed
instead. The T litter of nine that we're calling Ewoks because that is exactly what they and
especially their daddy look like. They are owner surrenders. The mama, the daddy and the second
mama, just wait I'll explain, were all strays that wandered up to someone's home during the ice storm.
Remember the terrible horrible no good very bad snow and ice storm we had earlier this year that I
told you all about. Okay they wandered up during that. The Ewok daddy got both the mama's pregnant.
One of the mamas actually looks just like the daddy so we're calling those puppies purebred
Ewoks but um that mama died though very sad. The man said something got her when the puppies were
almost three weeks old thus the second mama when she saw that the real mama was gone and that her
puppies were just so pitiful looking around for her and wanting to snuggle with somebody.
She stepped up and she took them into. Both litters were born just two days apart so they're
just the same age. When Jess went and got them all though because the man was keeping them all in
his laundry room the mama kept going in the laundry room and would just lay there and cry and cry
because she missed them so bad. That is so sad. The man is hoping to surrender the mama and the dad
at some point whenever we have room in a foster to take them but for now he is very happy to have
them spayed and neutered for free. At last the S litter of nine are the reason for the theme of
the transport. My mom was shopping inside of Lowe's the other day and turned down an aisle where she
shot she shot. I'm not even gonna cut that out I'm too tired. Where she saw a shopping cart full of
puppies that is hard to say you should try to say that. It was too hot to have them out in the parking
lot to give them away for free like everyone does so the owners were actually strolling them around
in the store in a cart with a sign that said free puppies. She told the owners that she could not
take them that day because we did not have any of our available fosters anywhere here or up there
with you guys and that it would probably be close to if not already August by the time we got to them
but she took them food and dewormer and potty pads the next day just to help them get by
and then five days later we had them on the van headed to Virginia because we ended up getting so
many fosters that signed up to help so they were very happy to get a spay voucher and get their
mama's spay for free and very very happy to get them all out of their house. As for the cats
Zip tie was found in an elderly man's yard after a horrible flash flood storm. She was about two
weeks old and needed to be bottle fed. She was passed around to a couple homes before she finally
ended up with one of our fosters. Wood was a last minute add-on. Someone was going to get a drink
out of a vending machine at a local motel and heard a teeny tiny meow. She was finally able to
reach the kitten from the back of the vending machine and he was super dirty but he washed up
nicely and is now ready for his forever family. If we would have added him sooner and not so last
minute this transport would have been things you find in a vending machine instead of things you find
inside of blows. Flooring was also a last minute add-on when I got word that only two
of the H litter of threes were going to show up. Spoiler alert that's our next story. Flooring was
caught on camera being thrown out of a golf cart into one of our fosters driveway this morning.
This morning like this morning they then almost ran the kitten over leaving after dumping the
kitten. So she has had quite a day from being thrown out of a golf cart and now on the van
headed to Virginia. The H litter of three now two was ironically named this before I even knew
this part of the story. The owner of the H litter of three from the Kentucky Derby transport May
3rd told her cousin how amazing Wolf Trap was and what great homes all the kittens got. So the
owner of the three asked us if if we could take them and we said yes oh and they also have a mom
and we said yes unfortunately we have absolutely zero adult fosters right now so we told her the
mom would have to hang back until next transport but then we could take her and then when she came
to drop off the kittens she said she could only find two so the mom and the third kitten will be
coming up together soon. The B litter of five were also supposed to come up with their mom.
Actually they were supposed to come up in their mom when she was pregnant but she gave birth the
day of transport so they held her back. The mom had wandered up to someone's business when she was
pregnant and the owner took her home and kept her until the kittens were weaned and ready to go.
Their mom will be on transport very soon. Oh the finders also named her Katie and they didn't know
me so like it wasn't because of me and I was still very pregnant and very miserable at the time when
she was originally supposed to go so I just love her that much more because we suffered from the
same condition and I really felt for her. The G litter of three were owner surrenders a pregnant
stray wandered up and the homeowners took her in. They love her and they are happy to be getting
her spayed and even happier that they don't have to deal with finding homes for or keeping three kittens.
That is all for this week's episode. That was a doozy and a tongue twister there. I'm very sorry
about that but that is 50 total animals on board today when I originally thought that we were going
to have to cancel transport all together because we only had 14 fosters. As always y'all are so
incredible and I thank God for you in my prayers. Every single night you are the only reason that we
are able to save so so many lives every transport but we do have another transport in two weeks that
we're still needing fosters for so make sure you sign up for that one if you're available.
It's a rough life but someone's got to do it.