Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life. Can you believe it's already the last transport
of 2024? This year seems so short and yet so insanely long and grueling. I'm still deciding
if I'm going to do an end of the year wrap up episode, so I don't want to go into too
much detail, but I'll just do a quick summary. Y'all know I'm a numbers girl, so let me hit
you with some stats. In 2024, we had 22 total transports. We transported a total of 1,066
animals. We averaged 49 animals on each transport. We had 715 puppies, 65 adult dogs, 258 kittens,
and 33 adult cats. Compared to 2023, when we had 25 total transports, we transported 1,232
total animals, still averaging 49 animals per transport. We had 828 puppies, 92 adult dogs,
276 kittens, and 40 cats. Now, I want to be disappointed about only moving 1,066 animals
this year, but really? We did 3 less transports and we were only short 166 animals compared
to last year. We definitely did not move as many adult dogs as we usually do. We're usually
somewhere between 90 and 100, but we had several. I mean, just off the top of my head, I can
think of four. Several super medically expensive adult dogs this year that we usually don't
have to deal with. And we also spayed a lot more this year that stayed with the owners
than we usually do. And considering we took all of March, almost all of June, almost
all of October, and all of December off, and we still fit in 25 transports, it's really
not too shabby. And when you take into consideration what all we've had going on down here outside
of our rescue world, it's really a miracle that we did any transports whatsoever. First
of all, I was pregnant for four of those months with a high risk miserable pregnancy. My mother
was diagnosed with stage four cancer, started chemo, stopped chemo because it was physically
killing her liver was sent to the hospital for possible acute liver failure. That was
this very week that was like four days ago, actually, and yet has gone on no less than
103 vacations this year, although three of those were to MD Anderson for tests and treatments,
but I'm still counting it because she got a break. And then my stepdad, her husband,
was also diagnosed with stage four cancer and also needed to go to MD Anderson to start
treatment. Jessica's only child got married, which you would think it sounds like a good
thing, but it was actually very time consuming for her, which is never a good thing for me
and the rescue world. She was also diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. And I don't totally
understand why, but she has given up all sugar and processed food and basically anything
that makes life worth living. So she's a real joy to be around lately. And I had a full
blown baby to add into all the chaos around us. And on the Virginia side, Dr. Burton got
divorced, went on sabbatical to Africa, came home, went to Ireland to see Taylor Swift,
made a quick stop in London just to look around, made a ton of trips to different states to
visit all her friends and bought a new house. Honestly, if this would have been a normal
year, I think we could have hit 3000 animals. Nevertheless, 1066 is not too bad. And those
are some very, very deserving 1066 animals. Oh, I forgot this stat. We did euthanize one.
So that is 1066 transported 1065 adopted out or will be adopted out when their time comes.
Our sweet Yorkie news feed from the May 31 social media transport had to be euthanized.
I don't 100% exactly remember it's 3am. So I can't call Dr. Burton chicken firm, but it
was either liver failure or renal failure. She was super, super sick and she was very
old. Dr. Burton tried some medicine to alleviate like the pain and the side effects of whatever
organ failure she was in. But you could just tell she was really suffering. So Dr. Burton
put her down instead of making her enter a long and painful death. But let's get into
this transports background stories. The theme is wicked. And do you ever have like a song
or something that immediately takes you back to a time and place? That is the entire the
entire wicked soundtrack for me. When that first note and no one mourns the wicked hits,
I am instantly taken back to early 2018. Late night, living alone with anywhere between
two and 20 random foster dogs, cleaning my house and singing at the top of my lungs.
If you are listening to this and you adopted a dog from us in 2018 or 2019, play the wicked
soundtrack and see if they react. There is a very good possibility that they were my
foster and if they were, they listened to these songs with me every night that they
were with me. So anyways, this is a very nostalgic theme for me. I saw it live in Memphis with
my mom and then I saw it twice in Nashville. I would love to take Justin to see it but
we can't afford it now so he's just gonna have to deal with the movie remake. And I
know these last few themes have been very niche so I'll try to do more broad themes
next year so everyone can enjoy them. I'm Not That Girl is an owner surrender. She was
given to the owners by one of their friends when she was just a couple months old. They
are moving and they couldn't take her with them so they emailed us for help. Nessa Rose
and the G-liter of three are from the same house. They are not littermates and to our
knowledge they are not related at all. I guess they could technically be like distant cousins
or something but regardless not related but the same lady surrendered them to us. The
owner asked us to take them a few days before the November 1st transport but that transport
was full so we said we would get them on this one. But the night before the November 1st
transport the owners sister called us and said the puppies were being attacked. I'm
not sure by what. Honestly it might have been the other adult dogs that lived there and
that one had been killed. So Jessica drove by there on her way to work that day and she
saw one of the puppies dead in the driveway. So we knew after transport that day we needed
to get them into a foster home as soon as possible. Jessica went and got the G-liter
of three the next morning. Their littermate was the one that was dead in the driveway.
There was another puppy from a second litter that was much older than the G-liter of three.
Jessica tried to catch it but it was too quick and it ran off. It was dead a few days later
when she went back to try again. There were obviously multiple adult dogs in the yard
and the owner would feed them by throwing handfuls of food on the ground which of course
made the dogs immediately start attacking each other to get to the food. Nessa Rose
was the last surviving puppy of a third litter. All of the other littermates died before the
owner even contacted us and she kept Nessa Rose in the house with her. She said she changed
her mind that first day and didn't want to surrender her to Jess when she was there and
since she wasn't doing anything illegal we couldn't force her to surrender the dog.
So Jess just left with the G-liter of three. She went back and forth with Jess through
tax for like the next five days. She would tell her okay come get it and then when Jess
would be on her way she would change her mind or wait until Jess got there and then she'd
be like no I want to keep it or tell her she's never ever going to surrender it and then
have her sister call and say okay she's ready to give it up. The owner was very unstable.
Like very unstable. She admitted multiple times across multiple days that she could not care
for the puppy or take care of it in any way. Finally after going there literally half a
dozen times and bringing food for the adult dogs each time two weeks later she agreed
to let Jessica have Nessa Rose. Jessica had the owner's sister meet her there who is also
unstable but seems very stable compared to the owner. The sister went in the house to
get the puppy and the owner was very loudly and dramatically sobbing. Then she came to
the door with the sister and she gave the puppy to Jessica, signed the surrender form,
and things seemed fine. But as Jess was walking to her car the owner became unhinged. She
started screaming at the top of her lungs and cussing at Jess telling her she had her dog
now leave her alone for good. For the next week straight the owner harassed Jessica through
calls and texts. One minute she would thank her for all of her help the next she'd be
begging for all of the dogs back and then it would end with her flipping out on Jessica
telling her she never even asked for her help when she doesn't know why we came and stole
all of her animals from her. Now Jessica is far far more patient and kind of a person
than I am so she spent several days calmly talking to the owner explaining everything
we do for these animals and what wonderful lives they're going to have and how she understands
how hard this decision was but she's proud of her for doing what was best for the animals.
Then after a few days she took my advice and she basically told her she could pry these
animals out of her hold dead hands and she blocked her. Now there are still several
adults there. Jessica did take the mama of Nessa Rose on one of her failed trips there
to get Nessa Rose. We don't know who the mom of the G letter of three are and I don't know
for sure that Nessa Rose's mom will even make her way to Virginia. We are still testing
her out to make sure she's a well rounded adoptable dog but the other adults I honestly
don't even know what we're going to do about them yet. First of all I don't even know that
she'll let us do anything. We're still in contact with the sister and even if they would
let us help it would have to be a like TNR trap new to return thing because they're basically
all feral and untouchable which you know I don't usually shy away from. I love the
the feral ones they're usually my favorite but with how violent these got when they were
fighting over the food and I know like that's not fair they're starving but it was aggressive
I don't know that I would ever trust them to be around other people's pets and children
so I don't think that I would ever pull them myself. It may be a situation where we network
out to other groups and see if anyone else can help if like we more or less just fund
it I don't know. We did give them lots and lots of food though for the time being and
again we are still in touch with the sister and she knows we want to do something at least
and if this mama ends up not being adoptable she'll go to our foster barn and live out
her life but so far she's doing really great. I was skeptical but she has proved me wrong
every test. The E-letter of two are our Mastiff Pups from early October. I shared their parents
story the mom and the dad on the October 12th Halloween costumes episode so listen to that
one if you're up for some Law and Order SVU type stories. It's a doozy. It's a doozy of
a story. Anyways I honestly don't even remember how many puppies were born originally I think
it was like seven or eight. We're down to two. I lost count of how many of that visits
we made. They were on so many different medications no one could figure out why they were all
dying and if you remember the owner said she had never gotten a puppy from this mama ever
because they all always died. We still don't really know why they died but when Dr. Burton
spayed the mom a few weeks ago she said it was one of the most infected uteruses. She's
ever seen in her whole career. Now my elementary education degree is telling me that that had
something to do with it like they've been infected in utero or something. I don't know.
I asked B and she said could be. So I'm taking that as your 100% correct and I can't believe
you've cracked this mystery you're basically a veterinarian. This whole litter had been
with our bottle feeder fosters since the day they were born. The first one didn't die until
it was like four days old but then it was literally like one a day for five days that
was dying. It was so awful but our fosters and our veterinarians did everything they
could and tried everything they could think of so it really is a miracle that we ended
up with two of these still alive. The pee litter of two have been fostered with the
E litter mastiffs at our bottle feeder fosters home for the last four weeks. Their mom was
killed when they were about three weeks old. Another rescue was pulling them and they did
something that I never ever do. They split the litter up and sent them in pairs to multiple
different fosters and or rescues. Our foster volunteered to take these two and then she
said she was just going to beg me to take them but um have you seen them? She obviously
didn't have to beg me long to take them. The old litter of three are strays. If you saw
the video of the two puppies playing with the underwear in the middle of the road and
one puppy crawling out of a drain pipe that was posted to our facebook and our instagram
page this is that litter. We were told two stories for this litter so I'm just going
to tell you both and you can decide which one is true. Story number one goes that this
is a stray mama who wandered up to a house pregnant. She gave birth. The homeowner gave
some of them away but the remaining three just lived in the culvert. Story number two
and this is what I think is actually the case because well I'll tell you what. Three the
three puppies were dumped on a dead end street and they just started taking shelter in the
culvert. We never saw the mom ever and the people who called us didn't know which home
the mom lived in ever. So we were legally allowed to take these puppies because the culvert
was in the caller's yard and they were the ones that had been feeding them for several
days. Also never found out whose underwear that was either so this was quite the mystery.
The Y litter of three are owner surrenders. The owner is a preacher at my stepdad's church.
The mom wandered up in their yard and they think they think I don't think so but they
think the neighbor's lab or doodle is the dad of the puppies. He is black and the mom
is a silver looking lab so I don't know where these chocolate ones came from. I would love
love a DNA test on these guys. You know I usually only give a spay voucher if you surrender
the whole litter to me. Well these were actually a litter of six and they wanted them to go
on the November 1st transport but again it was full at the time and at the time so was
this one the November 23rd transport so I couldn't help them. But then I had some cancellations
and they gave three away in the meantime so I definitely had room for them then. So since
they really did mean for me to take all six and they only gave some away because they
thought I wasn't going to be able to help them they're still getting a spay voucher
for the mama plus like I said it's my stepdad's preacher and he has stage 4 cancer so we're
really not in a position to upset the church. We need all the prayers we can get right now.
The d litter of four was actually a litter of five. They are owner surrenders. The owner
posted on a rescue Facebook page when they were just a few days old saying they needed
homes for the pups in a couple weeks. When our rescue partner Hope saw the post and saw
how many people were commenting saying they wanted a free puppy right now she quickly
deleted all those comments and told the owners that not only could she ensure all the puppies
would be fully vetted and be adopted to the very best homes but that I would also be able
to have the mama spayed so they quickly took her up on the offer. She told them that the
puppies needed to stay with the mama until they were at least six weeks old and they
agreed to quote keep them safe. Their idea of safe and ours are quite different little
did we know that they were just letting them roam around their property and then they accidentally
backed over one in their driveway in their defense they did take it straight to the vet
but the vet did advise them to euthanize it because it was too badly injured. So after
that Hope said she needed to move them to a foster who would ensure they were actually
going to be kept safe but yes they did get a spay voucher even though they accidentally
killed one of their puppies and I didn't get the whole letter. The M letter of six are
owner surrenders now they are from the same home as but they are probably not related
to but they are from the same home as the March 1st 2022 Ozark tea litter the July 19th 2023
pasta sea litter there was a ton in that one there was like 10 or 11 in that one the October 15th 2023
hot dogs B litter the November 11th 2023 drinks D litter and the February 22nd 2024 flowers sea
litter the family contacted our rescue partner the day that this mama had puppies to ask us to
put them down on the transport list they were just dumbfounded as to how she got pregnant because
she quote never likes any male dogs so after explaining how that had absolutely nothing
to do with how puppies are conceived they realize they probably should have gotten our spade long
ago this family is very very sweet though with huge hearts and they take in every animal that is
dropped off anywhere near them in their neighborhood they received a spay voucher for this mama and
all of their other dogs are already spayed or neutered by us so hopefully it's a few more months
before they go and find another pregnant stray to bring home the W litter of eight were strays
someone posted on facebook that they had seen a mama dog dead on the side of the road with five
five four week old puppies near her after seeing that no one had stopped to get them for two days
they decided to help when they got out to get them the puppies ran into the nearby woods
they thought there were only five but they ended up finding eight huddled together in a patch of
kudzu brush and garbage and this is the end of that story this is just a side note that has
absolutely nothing to do with anything i'm sure a lot of you don't know what kudzu is so i'm going
to tell you so you can have an irrational fear over it like i do the like name it's literally known
as the vine that ate the south it is a super invasive species of plants that was brought over
from japan in the late 1800s as just like a cute indoor plant but then it was used to help prevent
soil erosion in the 1950s and it has completely taken over the south since then you know how like
most people when they're driving and they pass a pasture with cows they announced cows to everyone
in the car with them do you all even have cows up there well i don't do that i announce kudzu
every time we pass it with a literal tremble in my voice i am so freaked out by it it grows
one foot per day and it can weigh up to 100 pounds it's this like thick vine that grows on top of
everything and then it kills everything underneath it so when you're driving by and you see kudzu
you know that everything underneath it is dead and that is so freaky to me like you just have
to drive around the south sometime and see how it has overtaken everything down here it is so scary
like i am so scared of it if i were the one that was trying to catch these puppies and i saw them
run into a kudzu forest i don't know that i would have been brave enough to go in after them like
i want to be joking about that but i am so serious look it up it looks beautiful until you realize
it's murdered everything under it i gotta stop talking about it i'm getting super worked up
i'm so freaked out by kudzu okay the you litter of four are owner surrenders the owner took their
dog to the vet to be spayed and the vet called them back to let them know she's pregnant so
they were going to find homes for the puppies when they got older and they were weaned but the mom was
hit and killed when they were four weeks old they gave them to our rescue partner debbie and she
transitioned them to food and was fostering them until one of the pups unusually and exceedingly
peculiar that's its name it got sick and if you know the song that that's from you know how hard
it was for me to say that name and not sing it but in all seriousness we weren't sure if uep was
going to pull through he was having seizures we could not figure out why so we took the whole
litter and we sent him to the vet to stay for several days we really still don't know what
was causing them but he's fine now everything came back negative we think it was because they had
such a huge huge worm load that that could have had something to do with it but we're really not sure
the s litter of seven um so someone who works at a vet clinic that our rescue partners are
partnered with was headed home after work one day and saw a cooler sitting on the side of the road
that wasn't there when she passed on her way to work so she stopped to check it out and seven little
faces popped out as for the kittens look to the western sky is from a feral mama that belongs to
one of our fosters they think there might be three other kittens but they're all living in a hole in
the woods behind their house and she hasn't been able to catch any of the others we have loaned
her our live trap to try and trap the mom and she has a spay voucher to get her fixed as long as your
mine was a litter of four whose mom was killed when they were just a week old they had some sort of
like upper respiratory infection or pneumonia and three of them died before they were even three weeks
old quaxwood trees was actually a litter of three that were dumped out of vet's office when they
were only like hours old i mean like maybe a day but seriously they were they were fresh newborns two
of them died almost instantly which is common with super newborn kittens like that unfortunately but
this one survived the f litter of two are owner surrenders someone asked our bottle feeder foster
to take them but since they were not needing a bottle feeder she asked if we had another foster
that would take them the owner said that she had had a litter of kittens before these two that were
quote ripped to shreds by something one night so she was terrified that that would happen in these
two we took them and we gave her a spay voucher for the mama so she doesn't have to go through this again
the t litter of six are known as the kfc kittens down here the mom is a stray cat that lives in
a feral cat colony behind the kfc in town one of our partners has been working to t and r all the
kittens and the adults they trapped the mom and they thought she was just thick from all the fried
chicken that the workers feed them but then she popped out some kittens so she stayed with her
until the kittens were weaned and she has been spayed in the last day or two but she's gonna stay
at her house a little while longer just to fully recover and then she'll be taken back to kfc to
binge eat some chicken again i bet she is so sick of this dry kibble the b litter of three are from
a rescue we pull from occasionally someone left the kittens at their office but they don't do kittens
so they reached out to us to see if we would take them there were four originally but the rent died
a day or two after they got them and that is a wrap on all of the 2024 stories what an insane
year it has been i feel so bad saying it was a terrible year because i had a baby this year like
she's the best she's the best baby we love her so much but honestly that is part of the reason
it has been so terrible of a year i'm half joking she really has brought us so much joy so so much
much needed joy but but man tough year like i said i'm still debating doing an end of the
year wrap up episode like i did last year where we go over all of our favorite polls and the best
stories of the year so let me know if the comments if you were hoping for one otherwise i will see
y'all january 4th for our first transport of 2025 happy thanksgiving, merry christmas, happy new year
and happy all the holidays i am so so unbelievably thankful for you for this community and for all
of the support you give me none of us could do any of this without you thank you thank you from the
bottom of my heart for loving my baby so much truly go ahead and subscribe and leave me a five star
review please it's a rough life but someone's gotta do it