Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life! It is the night before transport, so who knows how
accurate this is going to end up being. But it's only a mini this week, so how wrong can
I be? There are only 38 critters on the list, 24 dogs, and 14 kittens, which is great because
Jacqueline told me I could only send 12 kittens. We love transport math. The theme is candy because
I wanted Troll to be able to keep his name, and so with that let's start with his story. Trolli,
or Troll as he's known down here, I posted his whole story on the Fosters page earlier this week,
so if you read that you can skip ahead a minute or two because I am just gonna be saying the exact
same thing. Let me tell you about our sweet Troll baby. Terrible name, but he was found on a bridge.
What else am I supposed to name him? Several transports ago, everyone had just gotten home and
was cooling off. I was still tracking my 90 minute drive back home when we were sent a picture of
Troll. One of the neighbors of the doghouse was driving on the bridge on the corner of the doghouse
road. He was on his golf cart with a friend and when he saw Troll they actually thought that he
was dead and he had been hit by a car. So they walked over to him and the friend kicked his foot
and Troll didn't move. So the friend goes, yeah he's dead and they were about to move him out of
the road. Honestly they were probably planning on throwing him off the bridge when Troll wagged
the very tip of his tail. So my neighbor snapped a pic on his phone and sent it to us and you can
see Troll's tail wagging in the picture. Well I wasn't home but I was too far to come back
and Becky had just gotten home so since it was at the edge of Jessica's property line anyways
she drew the short stick and she ran down there. She scooped him up and she took him to the doghouse.
I was fairly certain that he was gonna need to go to the emergency vet but Jess said despite him
being insanely weak and dizzy he seemed fine. So then I was fairly certain that she had no idea
what she was talking about and that we were gonna have a dead dog in the doghouse by morning. But
plot twist just was right. We watched the nanny cams all night long and he only moved two or
three times but each of those times it was to get up, get some food to eat, drink a bunch of water
and pee all over the floor. But no one had taught him the doggy door yet so that's okay. He was very
slow and he was very wobbly but he was alive. So we were all pretty surprised when he was still
live in the morning and we had our vets take a look at him. Nothing was broken, no internal bleeding,
no parasites in his vehicle but I did have Jess hit him with a heavy dewormer the night before so
that might be why. The only thing that was wrong with him is he was super super anemic. His other
blood work was fantastic. He was heartworm negative and he was about eight months old
but he was severely underweight. He was weighing in at 12 pounds when he should have been about 45 to 50.
He's been with us for well over a month now and we have watched an absolute miracle firsthand. He
has gone from a dog that couldn't even walk up the one step in the garage to get into the house
to a dog that is running, playing, busting in and out the doggy door whenever he wants,
a dog who had literally every bone in his body protruding to a thick and healthy 30 pounds,
a dog who could barely even stand up and take just a few steps so he didn't pee where he was
sleeping to a dog that is running wild and holding his own with 10 plus other dogs at
doggy daycare all day every day. I don't know if troll was hit by a car and was lying on the side
of the bridge in a daze. I don't know if he was wandering around and got heat stroke and just
couldn't make it off the bridge but what I do know is someone did this to him unless there is
something seriously medically wrong with a dog like kidney failure or blood diseases something
serious. They do not get this skinny just from being a stray dog. They'll dig through the garbage,
they'll eat grass and sticks, they'll kill smaller animals, they may be underweight,
but starving to death is not why stray dogs die. A dog only gets like this if they are
chained up or confined without a way to find food on their own. A dog only gets like this
if someone starves them. It was well over 100 degrees the day we found troll. He could not
have walked far considering he could barely walk at all and we know all the people in the nearby
houses and he didn't come from any of their homes. So I would bet whoever did this to him
thought he was dead too. Maybe he didn't wag his tail for them or maybe he did and they just didn't
care because they knew he was on death's door anyways and they loaded him up and they dumped him
on that bridge. He wouldn't have made it through the night on the bridge. Someone else might have
stopped and picked him up but I doubt it. It's a gravel road that's mainly just traveled on by the
people in the houses on that road and none of them would have stopped for a dead dog. It's a heavily
wooded area with lots of coyotes that would have definitely eaten him that night and if they didn't
he would have died from heat stroke by noon the next day. Whoever left him there knew they were
leaving him for dead and I wish more than anything that we knew who it was just so I could tell them
what a wonderful happy loving full life troll is gonna have now. I don't know who did this but I
would bet my life that troll is gonna live in a home bigger than theirs. He's gonna go on better
vacations than them. He's gonna sleep in a nicer bed than theirs and he is going to be happier than
they have ever been a day in their life. Troll is gonna have a better life than he could have ever
dreamed of because some terrible cruel heartless unhappy monster left him to die and I just want
to tell them that. Okay skippers you can come on back now you are not going to want to miss this
next story. Baby bottle pop y'all better buckle up for this one. BBP or Ethel which is her actual
name has had quite a crazy life. She is a two-year-old purebred standard poodle. Her owner posted her
on a Facebook page for rescues anonymously saying quote I am looking for a northern rescue to take
a litter of standard poodle puppies. I am afraid to adopt out to people in Mississippi because of
the number of breeders here. I am posting anonymously I will explain why privately. Now if you know me
you know I'll explain why privately automatically has me invested and lucky for me our rescue partner
Hope does know me well. She knew I was gonna want in on this. So Ethel's owner messages us and this
is what she says. So long story short my boss sold me on this whole quote ethical breeding
ordeal. So ethical breeding is like legitimate registered breeders who are more interested
in the breed as a whole and making sure that the breed their breeding is the healthiest it can be.
So no one in the south and it's absolutely no one who has to be sold on it by their bosses.
Okay so anyways the owner goes on to say so I bought into it with a female poodle that she gave
to me. I've read her once and she absolutely hated it and I swore to never do that again.
So after rehoming all of the puppies to amazing families and leaving that job I decided since
I wasn't going to be breeding that I didn't need two extra poodles. Even though I loved them I just
wanted them to go to a new loving family that wouldn't breed them and would spay them. So I
adopted out the two females. Well I knew one of the ladies that adopted very well the other I only
knew from Facebook. So after digging on her page I felt she would give she would be a good owner
for the other female and I met her to give it a chance. She's very well off she explained that she
had another female standard poodle and she wanted a sister for her Maggie. Well I was so excited so
for weeks she sent me updates of how the two poodles loved to play together and asked all the right
questions. I explained the situation and I told her that she needed to be spayed as soon as possible.
She agreed. Then all capital letters then she messages me to confess that she lied to me.
Her dog was not a female but a male and she bred my dog with him. I of course was not happy but
what could I do? It was my fault for not spaying her first. So I had to leave well enough alone.
That was until I got a message saying she can't keep the poodle I gave her now. Now that she's
pregnant and she wants to this is all capital letters. She wants to give her back to me full of
puppies and then asked me if when she does have puppies could her and her daughter have two females.
So I agreed just to ensure I get the dog back. I get her back thank god that I block the lady
and she gets bent out of shape because I tell her I'm finding a rescue for the puppies and she
can't have any. Now before we go throwing stones at the owner here she knows she messed up.
She sent us another message right after that roller coaster of a message and she said well I guess
that wasn't a short story. I'm sorry I had to type all that out. I know that it was my job as her
owner to have her spayed and I failed her and now she has to do this crap again. But I'm very happy
I got her back because I do love her. She's an angel but I have to find a good placement for
these puppies when they're born at the end of September. I can keep them of course until transport
is available in their weaned but I am just sick to my stomach that I trusted this lady
and more so sick that I allowed her to leave me without being spayed prior. She then proceeds to
send us screenshots of her messages with the lady she gave Ethel to and if there's anything I love
more than I'll explain why privately it's receipts. I love me some screenshots and while nothing would
make me happier than to read you text by text of their conversations for the sake of time I will
just hit you with the interesting ones. The lady she gave her to messages her and says
so I think I need to confess I lied I told you our poodle was female well Maggie is really Moose
and he is a male. I was afraid you wouldn't give Ethel to me Moose is about to be four years old
and he was a rescue from someone who was moving to Texas and couldn't take him with no he was not a
rescue if you take him from someone just because it's your friend and they can't take their dog
with them you're just rehoming a dog it's not a rescue she goes I hope you're not mad then a few
days later she writes the original owner back and she says hi so we've hit a bump in the road
I've had heart issues this past week and I am very weak my husband is concerned about having Ethel
here with her being bred and that it's going to be too much on me we've asked a couple members of
the family to take her but they can't I felt I owed you the respect to give you a chance to get her
back tell me your thoughts but we would want two of her puppies for our two daughters and they would
have to be females okay so you're totally going to keep breeding them so they end up exchanging
the dog back the owner blocks the breeder on Facebook immediately and then the breeder
sends her a text saying wow I thought you were a good person I'm going to assume blocking me
was because you have something to hide you and I have a binding contract and it is in writing
I am not sure what made you do this but I am sure your best friend is the one who told you to because
her attitude towards me was really rude I really hate you did this then the owner who we want to
hate but we're not going to because she's righting her wrongs now she writes her back and she says
Ethel shouldn't have been bred the first time and that was a mistake on my part but as I told you
before she didn't do good with the puppies and I wanted her to have a good home where she wouldn't
ever be bred again it wasn't accidental I have the messages you sent me where you said you held
her down so moose could mate with her she sent us that she sent us the screenshot where the breeder
said she held her down oh my gosh so she goes on I'm not trying to be rude to anyone I just don't
want any problems I appreciate you taking care of her but as I said before she needed to be spayed
immediately Ethel wasn't in any condition to be bred we sent her to live with you after you told me
she was going to be fixed and that you only had a female dog in the home we should have had her
spayed before re-homing her but I trusted you there is no contract if she is pregnant I will
send her puppies to a northern rescue where people will love them and get them fixed I only blocked
you because I didn't want any problems I just wanted the best life for Ethel so that's the end
of the screenshots so the original plan was for the owner to keep Ethel and her puppies until they
were weaned and then she would send just the puppies to us and we would pay to have Ethel spayed
but I told Hope to tell her if she gave us Ethel now we would send her to Virginia while she was
still pregnant it would be easier on the puppies and Ethel would give birth in a foster home with
one of the best veterinarians in the entire world on call 24-7 if she needed anything so Hope worked
her magic and the next day Ethel's owner wrote back and said after looking into Wolf Trap she
knew Ethel would have the life she deserved and what she has wanted for her all along and a few
days later we got her okay so half of this podcast is just these first two dogs so sorry but they
had some wild stories okay on to everybody else the J-litter of two are from my mom's friend the
hurricane brought us several days of much needed but non-stop pouring rain it was great for our
ponds and plants but not so great for these two puppies that were dumped at the friend's house
they let the puppies ride out the storms on their beautiful wrap-around porch my mother wrote this
can you tell on their beautiful wrap-around porch I wouldn't even know what a wrap-around porch is
they let the puppies ride out the storms on their beautiful wrap-around porch
um and they have a grown German shepherd and couldn't afford two more dogs so she asked if we would
take them her kids were getting way too attached to them though so she asked if my mom would foster
them until transport we are kind of wondering though if her German shepherd is the daddy and
that's why these puppies ended up getting dumped at their house the N-litter of two are from Jessica
and this might be the first time ever that we have a real background story on one of hers
this is the message she sent me to ask me if I would take them I know this is probably a no
and that's fine but it is a decent story since I never provide those so our friend has two 16
week old husky puppies the mom was supposedly a purebred and belonged to our friend's niece
the niece bred her for drug money and then couldn't take care of the puppies anymore the mom died
and these two puppies are all that's left so our friend took them and has been trying to
get rescues to take them for weeks the niece now wants one of them back but she's telling her that
a rescue has already committed and paid for stuff so she can't have it which isn't true but she's
trying to stall and so I told Jessica first of all good job using your words and telling me a story
but second yes they can go and so then we found out today that tomorrow the day of transport
is our friend's birthday and she said this is the best present anyone could have ever gotten her
the d-litter of two um we got a message saying someone had dumped two pitiful puppies in their
neighborhood she said that a neighbor dog attacked one of them so another neighbor loaded her up and
took her to the vet 14 stitches later she's as good as new the neighbor agreed to foster them
and keep them safe until transport their kids were pretty weepy about them leaving but we
promised that we would send them pictures and they were very happy to hear that the c-liter of two
are from the same lady that had the t-liter of five from the august 17th Olympic transport
last month that seems so long ago it was just last month someone had dropped off two more puppies
at her house she said people drop off animals at her house all the time and when our rescue partner
hope went to pick them up no one was home but the lady's very aggressive German shepherd the mama of
the t-liter was not about to let hope get out of her car much less pick up these two puppies so she
set her phone up to record just in case she needed video proof of how she was attacked by a dog
after feeding her two cans of Vienna sausages do you have Vienna sausages in Virginia
anyways the mama was warming up to her a little bit and she was about to make her move when the
son pulled into the driveway to save the day so hope asked him if he would put the puppies in her
crate for her and he even said that he can't turn his back on the mama dog so it is a miracle she
got out of there unscathed the s-liter of 14 yes you heard me right 14 all one litter they are not
family friends they are coming from the same home as the f-liter of seven on the April 6
2022 chips transport and the b-liter of six from the September 27th 2022 islands transport
I left for my honeymoon the day after that transport I loved that transport
anyway the owner contacted us the day they were born she sent a picture of the mama and 14 babies
and said what do I do someone had dropped her off pregnant and the family took her in but they were
shocked when the babies kept coming and coming we gave her some formula to help supplement mama's milk
but she did a great job keeping them all fat and healthy miraculously they all lived and since we
had taken two of their other litters in the past the owner knew the drill and she had fallen in love
with the mama and already had a spay appointment with our favorite dr. Jami the owner said that her
kids will be a little sad that they're gone but they are all thankful that they're going to Virginia
and they are looking forward to a break from 14 puppies that's all the pups on this mini transport
as for the cats whopper was found in a ditch after the hurricane came through a few weeks ago he
nearly drowned in the ditch but he's made a full recovery almond joy and fun dip were both trapped
during a tnr project that we helped with they're not related they were on separate sides of town
but they are the same tnr project that we helped with almond joy came from an alley downtown and
fun dip came from behind the kfc dumpster the person who trapped them said fun dip was so little
when she got it she doesn't know how it set off the trap York peppermint patty is from Jessica
when I asked her for the background story she said I'm just going to copy and paste my message to
you when I told you I got another kitten but tell everyone that my favorite part about this message
is that i sent it four hours after i said i was definitely not pulling any more kittens until
after the wedding so the message she sent was in a group message with my mom and Jessica she goes
well Katie you're gonna kill me and I probably deserve it but I'm putting this in the group
message because I know Becky will take my side and it'll be two against one I went to pick up the
food at Walmart so Walmart donates their like returned or busted bags of animal food and supplies
so if a bag of kitty litter gets ripped open when they're putting it on a shelf they throw it in a
pile for us or if like a can of dog food falls off the shelf and it gets dented we end up getting it
anyways she said there were three workers all looking down at where all the big semi-trucks
were parked and there was a little tortie kitten running around it would have been flat by the
time all the trucks left this afternoon it took all of us to catch it but it didn't go wild so I
think it'll be fine ironically for the first time ever in all of the donations over the six years
they've been giving them to us there was a small pet taxi in the pile and I didn't have a crate with
me so I didn't know what I was going to do to take it home I didn't kill her but I had just
told her four hours earlier that we had way too many cats in our system and we needed to slow down
on what we were pulling especially because she is our cat foster and she is neck deep planning
her only child's wedding right now the m litter of seven or I don't even know how many there actually
are just asked me a few weeks ago if I would take them and she sent me five pictures so I put them
down as a litter of five then for weeks she's been saying the litter of six the litter of six don't
forget about the litter of six and I just assumed it was a typo because if you've ever texted with
Jessica you know she doesn't proof read a dang thing anyways I finally said are you sure it's
six I only have five pictures and she goes oh yeah I think I only sent five pictures but there's
definitely six I have six pictures so I add the six one to the list then yesterday I remind her that
I still need their genders and she writes back okay there's two girls and five boys okay well
that's not six she said apparently the owner put them outside and when our bottle feeder foster
heard that she went and got them after work today to make sure that they would be safe until transport
tomorrow and she found seven kittens when she went to get them in the yard we later found out that the
owner had been giving them away but whoever was supposed to pick up the seventh one just never
came and got it so we ended up getting it too the owner is keeping the mama and already has an
appointment to get her spayed but just as a little fun fact for you talking about what a terrible
texter Jessica is she was she was messaging with our jail fosters our fosters who are in jail
and she was trying to say
she was trying to say I will be there around two to pick the puppy up but instead of around
she said I'll be there porn to pick her up and they wrote back and they said
lol um okay sounds good leave the porn at home please
and Jessica wrote back and said it took me several minutes to figure out what you meant
I am so sorry there will be no porn involved in today's pickup
but when she sent me that screenshot I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe I think about that
all the time and I just crack up she's always sending crazy typos but that is the best one
ever I think that is so funny okay last story I am so sorry this is taking so long
and the l letter of three are coming from a local shelter but their backstory is that a lady was
able to trap a very pregnant semi feral cat and brought her inside to have her kittens she very
slowly warmed up to the lady and as soon as the kittens were old enough and tame enough
she took them to the shelter and they spayed the mama cat for her and she's keeping her
the shelter is very thankful that we're helping them with their overcrowded population after these
leave they're able to make room for another litter of kittens that has been on a very long
intake wait list oh my this was way too long of an episode for it to just be a mini transport
but we have another transport next week and I'm told those puppies will be used for the annual
caps calendar that we're a part of so you know they are going to be heckin cute and you know
you want to foster a puppy that tom Wilson is going to be posing with on the calendar that
everyone is going to buy and hang on their fridge so make sure you sign up thanks for listening oh
and someone told me the other day I'm supposed to be saying subscribe to the podcast and leave
a review so do that if you can only if it's a good review don't do it if you're going to be honest
and say that it's just 20 minutes worth of me laughing at my own stories
anyways it's a ruff life but someone's got to do it