Hello friends, welcome to Ruff Life!
I need to leave for transport in about 15 minutes, and you already know my episodes
have been running way longer than 15 minutes lately, so I need to jump right in.
Today's theme is famous vines.
If you were a part of the vine phenomenon back in, I don't even know, like 2014, 2015-ish,
count your lucky stars.
What a time to be alive that was.
It was during my sophomore year of college, and I had an hour break in between two of
my morning classes, but I lived 30 minutes from campus, so it wasn't enough time for
me to really do anything.
So I would sit in my car for an hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, and
I would watch an hours worth of vine videos and just bawl my eyes out laughing so hard.
There were several times that I would walk into my next class and my friends would be
like, oh my gosh, have you been crying?
And I would have to admit that it was from watching 7 second videos for the last hour
straight.
I was thinking about how I would explain what vines are to my mother when she finds out
what her puppy's names are and wonders why the heck I named them that.
But I literally can't even put into words what these videos even are or why they were
so hysterical.
I thought about just showing them to her, but seriously, unless you were watching it
in real time, you just cannot appreciate what comedic gold they are.
I will forever miss vine, and I still don't even know why they shut it down.
But one thing I will never scroll past on TikTok is a good vine compilation video.
I posted on the Fosters page that I wanted to do this thing, well actually I was torn
between this and the Secret Lives of Moron Wives for a theme.
But this one won in the polls, so we went with this.
And Claire helped me come up with the majority of the names, but did that stop me from rewatching
hours and hours worth of vine videos the last two days?
Absolutely not.
My abs hurt from laughing so hard.
What a time that was in American history.
Anyways, if you aren't lucky enough to have been privy to the vine videos back in the
day and you're wondering what your foster is named after, all you have to do is type
their name into Google with Vine V-I-N-E after it and it'll pull up the video.
But all of the vines are kid-friendly though, so I would watch it first before showing it
to your kids.
I tried not to use any of the really not kid-friendly ones, even though they are some of the funniest
ones.
Okay, so the stories.
Eyebrows on Fleek, or Millie as she's known down here, was actually dumped at my 87-year-old
grandmother's house.
She lives on the road next to the doghouse, so I'm wondering if they knew Millie would
eventually make her way to me.
She stayed at my grandmother's for two weeks while we looked for an owner, and then after
transport left and the doghouse opened up, we moved her in over there, but she was all
by herself over there and she was so lonely.
So Jessica would pick her up in the mornings and bring her to her house to spend the day
with them, but all of her dogs are old, crabby, blind, or all of the above, and they didn't
play with Millie like she was desperate for, so I know she's gonna be so excited to get
a playmate.
Nice Ron, or Luke as he's known down here, was picked up by Animal Control in February
after being left in a nasty motel room in the city limits.
He was so emaciated, neglected, and had so much hair loss from mange.
One of our rescue partners worked closely with another Northern rescue as well, and
the director of that rescue came down from up north to see the shelter and look at the
animals.
The director immediately loved Luke and asked our rescue partner if she would personally
foster him until he was ready for transport.
That was February.
By July, the rescue still hadn't taken Luke, but they would often use him as bait to get
our rescue partner to pull or foster something else for them, saying things like, if you'll
foster this litter of eight puppies, we'll get them and Luke on the next transport.
And then they would still not take Luke and they would just take the puppies.
So come September, she was completely ghosted by the rescue altogether, and their local
partner here in the south told her that the Northern rescue told them there was zero chance
that they were ever gonna take Luke and she needed to just adopt him out locally or find
another rescue.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, which that is terrible in and of itself.
This part is what really gets me.
So the way most Northern rescues work is that the local Southern rescues or just the individual
rescuers in this case, they do all of the vetting that the animal needs.
And then when they go up north and they get adopted, the rescue reimburses them.
So not only did this rescue ask this rescuer to foster this dog for nine months for them,
and then cut all ties with them.
They also made her pay completely out of her own pocket to vet the dog.
I'm like everything, all the vaccines, neutering, monthly preventatives, dog food, everything
out of her own pocket, which that obviously is not how we operate.
If we commit to a dog, we take over all that care immediately.
I have accounts with vets in almost every surrounding town.
So all I have to say is take it to this specific vet and I'll cover everything, which is just
one of the many, many reasons that Wolf Trap supporters are so, so amazing because we could
not do that without you guys.
But anyways, Wolf Trap saves the day again and takes sweet, sweet Luke who has been in
limbo since February.
Bring the beat in.
I was torn between using bring the beat in or anything for you Beyonce, but I wanted
to use a for someone else.
Okay, bring the beat in.
Up here two weeks ago in a nice neighborhood and came up to an older lady as she was taking
her groceries inside.
She figured that he just belonged to a neighbor since he was so adorable, but by the end of
the next day, he was still in her yard.
So she put him in her backyard to keep him safe and posted in her neighborhood Facebook
group and several other Facebook lost and found groups.
No one really said anything so she took him to the vet to get scanned for a chip, but
no luck there either.
She ended up trying to give him away for free on Facebook after a few days and we knew that
that little cute little scruffy thing belonged to Virginia and not tied up to some random
person's tree in their front yard for the rest of his life.
Free Chewbacca do.
Oh, that's one of my favorite ones.
Free Chewbacca do.
Okay, so remember when I was just telling you nice Ron's story about how ridiculous
it was that that northern director of another rescue asked one of our rescue partners to
personally foster a dog for them?
Unbelievable.
Well, let me explain.
Free Chewbacca do was found running downtown in the middle of the road in the pouring rain
in front of our veterinary partner, Dr. Jamie's Clinic.
So she worked all morning to get close enough to catch her and bring her inside and then
she posted her on Facebook looking for the owner.
And this was right down the road from where all of the sea litter Chihuahua mixes from
the August 2 Olympic athletes transport were dumped and she looks just like the Chihuahua
mix Mama Caroline.
So I asked that same rescue partner who was still fostering nice Ron for the other rescue
if she would also go get and foster free Chewbacca do.
But the difference is I actually sent the dog a few weeks later.
I didn't make her hold onto it for almost a full year.
But I really wasn't going to push for her to go on this transport because we already
have a full load and she is such a perfect dog.
I knew that she wouldn't mind fostering here for a couple more weeks.
But then she told me if she stayed any longer that they were probably going to foster fail
and they wouldn't be able to give her up because she is literally a perfect dog.
So we had to get her out of their ASAP.
The why litter of two are from a local shelter.
They were originally a litter of three, but one of them got adopted a few weeks ago.
They had wandered into someone's yard earlier this month and they were teeny tiny and pitiful
so they took them to the shelter.
This shelter is slowly but surely working on its long intake wait list.
So this now frees up a kennel for them to bring in a whole other litter of puppies.
So they are very thankful for our help.
The D litter of three were owner surrenders.
They're not technically a litter of three.
If you look at them, I guarantee you can figure out which one is not part of the litter.
You know how we have litter names down here just to keep track of who we're talking about.
Well these guys are the tetanus house puppies because the whole yard looked like a literal
garbage dump.
We had gotten a message about two puppies left out of a litter of six.
Two had been given away and two had died.
So Jessica went over there just to parvo test the remaining two before we decided what we
were going to do.
When she pulled up, she thought she was at the wrong house because none of the buildings
could possibly be habitable and then she saw a tiny puppy bouncing around on one of the
porches.
So she made it to the door without falling through the porch and she knocked and somebody
yelled to come in and like an idiot, she did.
She cracked the door and she walked in and there were men passed out all over the place
and a huge pit bull lying on the couch.
So she closed the door real quick, did what she needed to do, parvo tested and made plans
to come back when we had a plan for the puppies in a place to go and hopefully everyone there
would be sober.
So we ended up getting the extra older puppy out of the pool because she had shown up a
few weeks earlier and she was just too sweet to leave behind.
They really didn't want her but they were just letting her stay there anyways.
The mom-a-dog belongs to these fine upstanding people and we gave them a voucher to have
her spayed.
Oh and it wasn't parvo, I think it was just malnutrition or tetanus honestly.
The litter of five are from our local kill shelter.
They were owner surrenders.
The owner was being committed to a mental hospital and his mom found the puppies and
two cats locked in the laundry room.
The story goes that the guy was trying to choke one of the puppies.
He is ex-military and he had it in a chokehold because he thought it was attacking a child.
It was not, there were no children anywhere.
And when they found the puppies, one of them had the outside part of the dryer vent stuck
around its neck.
I assume it has been trying to get out through that opening and that's how it got stuck around
its neck.
The W litter of 11 were owner surrenders from our town's semi-retired veterinarian.
The mom-a-dog showed up at his vet's office and this vet is super old but he was feeding
the dog every day and then our vet had a wreck recently and a friend of his, Roger, took
over taking care of the puppies and he called us about them.
11 puppies total.
So Jessica went over there to see them one day and there was another lady there that
claimed she was going to take three of the puppies with her.
They fought back and forth for a while and she finally just left with one puppy.
Neither Jess nor Roger owned the dog or the property and their hands were kind of tied.
So as sick as it made Jessica, she felt like the puppy just had to take one for the team
to get her out of there.
Jessica told me I had to say that but I 100% disagree.
If I would have been there, if I didn't have this dumb baby, I would have been there.
We would have gotten all 11 that day or I would have left in handcuffs but whatever,
I guess her way worked too in the end.
The mom-a-dog was also flipping out.
I thought it was because she was feral but I think it was just this crazy woman that
was there.
Not Jessica, the other crazy woman.
Anyways, the next day Roger went there and there were only nine puppies and while he
was there, a guy showed up and said he was there for a puppy and that woman from the
day before had sent him.
So Roger told him he could not have one and the guy got mad, argued, and finally just
stomped off cussing and said he'd be back later.
When Roger came back the next day, there were eight and that made him so mad and he tracked
that lady down and he told her none of them had any right to be up there and if anybody
else showed up, he would file trespassing charges and theft and he wanted all of the
puppies that she took back or he was filing charges against her too.
And the next morning, all 11 puppies were there.
We did not send the mom with these guys because we're not totally sure if she's adoptable
yet but either way, she'll be spayed and sent to our foster farm to live as a barn dog or
she'll be on a later transport if she's a sweet girl and can be adoptable.
With a tea litter of nine, our owner surrenders the day after the puppies were born, literally
the day after.
The owner posted pictures of them on Facebook saying that they would need new homes quote
pretty soon and that is always a recipe for disaster and there was no chance that that
mama would get spayed.
So our rescue partner hope immediately contacted the owner and told her that we could supply
her with all the puppy food for the mama that she needed and we could give her a spay
voucher to get the mama spayed as long as she surrendered every single puppy.
So she said deal and then immediately started asking for puppy food.
So we gave her about six huge bags of puppy food during those six weeks.
So thank you so much to all of you awesome fosters for sending food to us.
That's the only way we're able to do this.
When hope went to pick them up, it was in a rundown trailer park, really, really sad
living conditions.
The puppy smelled so bad that she had to ride all the way home with her windows down and
give them a bath as soon as she got home.
But we're just so thankful that they're out of that hellhole.
I want to be famous and her eight eye litter puppies were surrendered by the owner at a
local shelter.
The owner brought the mama and her litter of eight three day old puppies to the shelter
and said that she had lost her job, lost her house and was no longer able to take care
of Cha Cha and her puppies.
The shelter asked if Wolf Trap would be interested and we said duh.
So they moved her to a foster home to keep them out of the Jeremy shelter before transport.
And now for the cats.
Judas note was a litter of four that belong to a feral mama.
We are still trying to trap her and have her spade.
The lady had given away the other three by the time Jessica got this one.
Food work ahead showed up as a stray not much to her except Jess said that she is the sweetest
and gives good kneading back massages while she sleeps.
She also needs her in her armpit once in a while.
But Jess is trying to overlook that.
She also really helped Judas know come out of his shell when Jess was fostering both
of them.
So she's a really good girl.
When Reed her bible was picked up by animal control in a nearby town.
She's another one that wasn't on my priority list because I knew her foster was fine keeping
her until next transport until she told me she was on the verge of foster failing.
So I got her out of their ASAP.
The sea litter of three were found as strays.
Our rescue partner's daughter was on her way home from work and she saw a little kitten
near the road.
She pulled over and ended up getting two more out of the ditch also.
They would have been roadkill in no time had she not picked them up.
She agreed to keep them safe and foster them until transport.
The H litter of five are owner surrenders kind of a lady and her husband bought some
land with a shop and it came with four adult stray cats.
Of course it did.
One of the cats had kittens immediately and they did not want to keep the kittens.
So she worked with them for a few weeks to get them friendly and then we sent them to
a foster when they were old enough.
The owners were very thankful that they did not have to re-home five kittens and they
have already taken all of their inherited cats to the vet to get them vaccinated and
spayed and neutered.
They're going to keep the adults and let them keep living at the shed that they're used
to.
The S litter of five are owner surrenders.
The owner reached out to one of our fosters to see if we would take them because she didn't
want to give them away on Facebook to just anybody.
And that is it for this week.
There are 59 critters on board, five of which are adult dogs, which we love.
We only have one more transport this year and then that's it until January.
So make sure you sign up to foster.
That foster period starts November 23rd so everyone fostering this round will be eligible
to foster again for that one if your animal gets adopted.
And don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast because that's apparently
what you are supposed to do.
It's a rough life, but someone's got to do it.
And then one minute late.
Oh, all right.
Bye guys.
I'll see you next time.