Hello friends, welcome to ruff life. Well, if you are not following the ruff life podcast
on Instagram, you need to. I'm trying really hard to be more active on there and I put
a poll up tonight asking if y'all just want the bare bones on the episode tonight and
just tell you the background stories and that's it. Or if you want all the tea and I tell
you everything that's going on lately, it was unanimously give me all the tea with 48
votes in three hours. Although one of those was me trying to test it out to see if it
even worked. So for the other 47 of you buckle up. If you are not following us and you would
have voted just stick to the background stories, feel free to fast forward about five minutes
and maybe 10 minutes. Y'all know I'm a talker. Okay, I won't spend too much time talking
about this because I know the majority of you know what happened. But just for the people
who are listeners from other states and don't foster with us. Unfortunately, our animals
on the last transport were in a horrible, horrible car wreck. The van was about 20 minutes
from the Wolf Trap Hospital. I'm still not totally sure what happened, but I do know
that the other vehicle involved was a tow truck. So it was pretty gnarly. Most of our
crates were damaged or destroyed. Several animals were thrown out of their cages and
loose inside the van and devastatingly five of our cats escaped when they ripped the driver's
side door off and they haven't been able to be caught yet. When I tell y'all that this
is my worst nightmare, I mean, it is actually my number one full blown worst nightmare ever.
I woke up at 530 my time to a couple texts from Jacqueline just very briefly mentioning
what was going on and that there had been a wreck. I barely had my eyes open when I
read. So there's been an accident, missing lots of cats and one puppy so far and I was
instantly wide awake after that. I had had like four hours of sleep wide awake. I called
Jacqueline. She explained what was going on. Dr Burton was on her way to the hospital.
So she ended up being one of the first ones on the scene. Jesse was at the hospital. So
he jumped in the other transport van and flew over there just to start throwing animals
from the wreckage onto the empty van. The lanes on the highway were closed down to try
and catch all the animals. Our driver was rushed to the emergency room, but thankfully
miraculously only had a broken nose. I don't know anything about the other driver or his
vehicle, but he's apparently fine and didn't have to go to the hospital. Everyone ended
up being accounted for except the five missing cats. So we had all that going on two weeks
ago. Then the next week, so this week, I found out that the mayor where I live here in Alabama
told our city and county shelter that they were no longer allowed to work with rescues.
No animals could leave on transport to rescues and all animals had to be adopted locally
were euthanized. Period. So when the shelter director took a couple puppies that were scheduled
to go to rescue that day or possibly the next day and sent them as planned, he put her on
administrative leave and threatened to fire her. And that is when we all lost our ever-loving
minds. I think he really truly thought that a couple people at the shelter would be really
mad about this, but that would be the end of it would all blow over. But people from
all over, especially in our very own town were livid, threatening to literally burn
the town down over this. And I was one of them. I was ready to set stuff on fire before
I even knew the director was in the process of being fired. And I do understand his reasoning.
I get it. He said that a quote unquote disgruntled volunteer came to him very upset that she couldn't
adopt a super cute puppy from a litter of 10 because that whole litter was going to a
rescue. And that isn't fair. I get that I really do. If you want to adopt a puppy from
your shelter, it's really frustrating that you're not allowed to. But you also don't
understand the way that it all works. And you probably don't understand that animals
down here are not treated well. What you think is treated well is horribly shocking to people
up north. So it absolutely looks like shelters are just out to make local people mad and
send every cute and tiny puppy up north. But what people don't realize is, yeah, shelters
could definitely adopt out the adorable fluffy, murl puppy. But the other nine in that litter
that are solid black and already look like their pit mixes will either grow up in the
shelter taking up valuable space for years that other animals could use, or they'll
be euthanized before they even lose their baby teeth. You can adopt out a puppy to someone
down here who will absolutely love and adore it until it's a rowdy six month old dog that's
jumping all over them and chewing up the remote. And then they're just going to tie it to a
tree in their front yard and wait for it to get pregnant so they can take one of its puppies
inside until it's huge and wild to and tie it up right next to his mama. People don't
understand that the northern rescue isn't just going to take the cute mural. They're
going to take all the black pit litter mates and the heartworm positive mama and the mange
puppy that was just brought in that's contagious and the dog with the broken leg because of
a run over in the parking lot like you can't expect a northern rescue to take for lack
of a better word your junk but adopt out the cutest ones locally for $25 and you're not
even going to spay a neuter. You're not going to have any northern rescues to work with
anymore if that's what you do. Anyways, that disgruntled volunteer failed to mention that
she's been fostering a dog for this shelter for over a year now and refuses to adopt it
because she can't afford the medication it needs to be on daily. But she also won't bring
it back to the shelter for them to adopt to someone else or send to a rescue and like
that's fine I get that. A dog that has to be on medication daily would be hard to adopt
out and hard to get into a rescue and I know for a fact that this shelter would rather pay
for its meds and her keep it because they know it's safe and happy and being taken
care of with her but don't bite the hand that feeds you like they're paying for your
dog's medication and you're going to go behind their back because they won't let you adopt
a puppy from them that's already committed to a northern rescue that's ridiculous.
People also don't understand how important it is for shelters to keep their northern
partners happy and I know as a northern rescue that makes me sound really entitled but if
you're consistently telling me that you have 10 puppies and I post those 10 puppies and
I find fosters for those 10 puppies and I can pick them up and you tell me oh we gave
away the three cute ones or even if you just gave three of them away I don't even care
which ones you just wasted so much of my time and if that happens over and over and over
I could throw a rock in any direction and find another shelter that is begging for a
northern rescue's help one that will make sure if they tell me these 10 puppies are
going I am picking up those 10 puppies so it's not just we're not bending the rules
for you even though you're our friend and our volunteer it's we can't piss off the northern
rescue because they might not work with us anymore and then hundreds and hundreds if
not thousands of dogs after this won't be saved because we don't have a rescue pulling
from us anymore I have been so irritated about this all week I even commented on a huge post
about this and I told everyone who was wanting or needing to surrender a dog or have a stray
picked up to take it straight to the mayor's house here's his address dump them there since
he apparently knows of so many people just dying to adopt a full grown heartworm positive
dogs and of course he did this big press conference twisting his words around saying I never once
said that I wanted any dog anywhere to be euthanized of course you didn't no one would
ever say that we would crucify you no one's gonna say that but if you take away transports
and local adoptions are almost non-existent the only other choice is mass euthanasia anyways
they want me to go to a protest on Monday night and it's supposed to be a quote unquote
peaceful and silent protest but y'all I do not have the self control in me to be peaceful
or quiet and I do not have the fear of getting arrested in me either so I know I will go there
and I will cause a scene so I don't know if I'm gonna go because I don't know if Justin
will let me go because he does have the fear of me getting arrested in him I just cannot
believe that in this day and age in my very own town transports are being banned and people
are losing their jobs over it that is unbelievable and the day of our lord 2025 we're shutting
down transports are you kidding me anyway between the stress of the missing cats the
stress of our idiot mayor and then my 10 month old baby refusing to sleep at night lately
I have been running on literal fumes I didn't get to do the podcast last night like I usually
do because my slaves I mean volunteers they didn't get the background stories to me until
this morning but because of that I'm able to tell y'all what happened at today's transport
and it was such a wild day okay skippers you can come back now look at that 10 minutes
like I said today's theme is Saturday Night Live skits because it is their 50th anniversary
and because our foster favorite Claire sent me the majority of these names and also told
me it was the 50th anniversary thank you Claire for once again doing my job for me grouch is
the long lost brother to the g litter pups from the January 4th potato transport this
year if you remember that episode the g mama and her two puppies were sent on transport
but two of the puppies had disappeared when they were five weeks old well one mystery
is solved the neighbor contacted the owner a few weeks after transport left to tell her
that one of her puppies had wandered down the hill to their house and she needed to
come get it so they had had this puppy for a month or more and then just all of a sudden
didn't want him anymore but no mention of the second puppy that disappeared either which
is a bummer but we are very thankful that this sweet boy is headed to Virginia where he's
meant to be and I would love a family reunion with his litter mates it's Saturday night one
of our fosters messaged us and said how hard would it be for a 12 pound little doodle terrier
mix to get a spot on transport very friendly four years old the lady that owned her couldn't
keep her for some reason so I've had her I had a home for her but I don't think that
they were gonna get her fix so she's been with me for a couple months now I know she
wouldn't be hard to find a home for but one that would fix her is another thing and then
she sent us the picture of her and we said um yes she is so tiny so adorable and our
foster is so thankful that we're taking her because she can rest assured that she will
be spayed fully vetted and live happily ever after as a member of some very lucky family
unfrozen caveman lawyer was found wandering in the streets of a nearby town and was posted
on Facebook trying to find the owner of course every person who saw him was saying well if
you don't find the owner I'll take him which means they like the thought of a cute fluffy
puppy but once he got too big they would put him outside and tie him to a tree so hope
jumped in and messaged the finder and thankfully he took her up on her offer to send him with
us because this sweet boy deserves the best life king tutt was also from Facebook the
girl posting him said her grandfather has cancer her mother has dementia so they do not need
another living thing to try to take care of he was also very very scared at transport
today he tried to bite me when I was attempting to pull him out of his crate but after sitting
next to him for a minute he eventually came cowering out crawled into my lap and was just
shaking like a leaf so he's done fantastic down here with his fosters so I know he'll
do great up there once he settles in but it was so sad for me to have to take him from
one crate and put him into another one when I knew he just wanted me to hold him and love
on him forever so if you are fostering him please be patient with him he's gonna be a
fantastic dog I'm just a little scared and I need all the pictures of him so that I know
he's okay French chef was dumped at a nearby park by the time she was found she was nearly
frozen to death the person who found her took her to her work and was more warming her up
in her office she posted on Facebook that she found her and would be willing to foster
her until she went to a rescue and if you didn't know that is the sweetest words ever said
to us down here we will pull just about anything if it comes with a all foster until transport
promise evil boss was dumped with some other puppies on a back road in another county the
finders gave away all the other puppies but no one wanted this one so they posted him
on Facebook on a rescue page and foster agreed to keep him safe until transport ain't that
special okay I've never seen this get so I don't know if it's like ain't that special
or like ain't that special I'm hoping it's the latter because this is a really sweet
dog she was being given away because the parents of a two-year-old daughter thought that the
two-year-old daughter needed a puppy they soon realized that was a terrible idea and
she was allergic to the puppy and so they posted her on Facebook as free to a good home
the puppy not the daughter live from New York was found on the side of the road an older
lady brought her home and kept her on a tie out on her porch for a few weeks until she
contacted us to take her okay I would love to know can you guys tell the difference between
background stories that were written by Jessica with B2Cast or background stories written
by Hope our other rescue partner okay I'll give you an example this one's Jessica's
age litter of two were found on the side of the road in the rain that's that's it that's
all she gives me are you kidding me they are litter of two are from another rescue partner
they reached out to us and asked if we could help with a litter of two puppies that had
been found she recently had parvo at her house and she couldn't keep them there so she found
a foster took them to the vet and we were very glad to help out a fellow rescue down
here who is in the trenches with us the M litter of eight are from our Alabama shelter friends
they got a call about a pack of wild dogs out in the county that were causing trouble
and by trouble they meant tearing up garbage the owner was a man who had a few dogs and
was in an accident that left him paralyzed his elderly mother was left to take care of
him and of course his animals which quickly multiplied all the dogs are feral and cannot
be touched they had a trap all eight of these puppies because they were so wild they said
there's still at least 10 other feral dogs left at this house that are just roaming
loose the shelter does have a TNR program so the plan right now is they're working to
catch and spay a neuter all of them and just return them because they're so feral the T
litter of three are from one of our rescue partners Tasha Tasha and I have worked together
for years but we mainly always communicated through hope because it was just easier and
we never directly communicated with each other but she is quickly becoming one of my favorite
people so a couple of years ago we were literally almost done loading up the transport van when
Ollie my dog chased a mouse underneath the van either Ollie bit the wire or the mouse
did but somehow the gas line was punctured and gas was spewing out everywhere there was
zero chance we could drive the van even a few feet away from where it was parked next to
my bedroom window let alone all the way to Knoxville we didn't know what we were going
to do but we called Tasha and she runs a funeral home a couple towns owner over and they have
a cargo van just like ours that they used to haul flowers around in it wasn't 30 minutes
later despite her living 45 minutes away before she came flying over my hill pulling into
my driveway on two wheels we had already gotten everyone off of the about to explode any minute
van and quickly threw them all into Tasha's van my driver sped the whole way to Knoxville
and we didn't even end up being late at the transfer oh and so she runs the funeral home
this is what made me really like her one time we were loading a ridiculously heavy dog together
into a crate and I'm huffing and puffing and I said whoa he is really heavy and Tasha
looked at me straight in the eyes completely serious and said ain't heavier than a dead
body who says that but I mean like she has to move dead bodies around all the time but
it just made me cackle she was so serious she's so funny anyways that's Tasha I figured
I should introduce you guys to Tasha after all these episodes but these are her babies
so she said four puppies that were two weeks old were found dumped behind a local restaurant
in 20 degree weather one had already frozen to death by the time we got the call she got
called to try to find help and she could hear them screaming in the background on the phone
they were starving they were cold so she went running around to get supplies to bottle feed
them and get their temperature up and she is so thankful that these three survivors pulled
through me too Tasha the d letter of six were posted on Facebook they had just been born
in a responsible neighbor was trying to find a rescue to commit to the puppies when they
were old enough to leave the mama when she found out that not only would we take all
of the puppies but we would give her a spay voucher for the neighbors mama dog she said
she would personally make sure these puppies were taken care of until transport and make
sure that the mama got spayed the P letter of five are from hopes mom a few weeks ago
hopes stepdad called her in a panic early one morning as he was leaving for work he
and hopes mom have a very long driveway up to their house and someone had dropped this
litter of five scruffy puppies off he's a lawyer and he was on his way to court and
hope was on her way to an early morning doctor appointment so she called her mom and begged
her to just please go to the end of the her driveway and get them before they all got
run over hope promised her that she would find a foster but she knew when she got them
back to the house she would let them stay and of course she was happy to take care of
them until transport the S letter of six were posted on Facebook and everybody and their
mama was tagged multiple times to get these puppies there were two fluffy puppies posted
before any of us could respond 100 other people were begging for them including several other
rescues so we all just figured we were too late to get them they had been brought into
one of the local groomers who's also a breeder and the lady was asking her to help her find
homes for them but as soon as hope messaged her she responded and told her that the two
that were posted were going to a wonderful home that she knew and they would absolutely
be spayed and neutered but then she said there's six more of them that you can have hope said
we'll take them sight unseen next thing I know she sent me a picture of a tub full of
fluffer balls and she was already on her way to go pick them up the mom is a registered
golden retriever and the dad is the neighbor's great Pyrenees and they told us that he's
an Eskimo spits but when we asked for a picture they sent us a picture of a purebred huge
great Pyrenees the sea litter of 11 are owner surrenders she has like 40 dogs because she's
quote unquote in rescue no she's not and was shocked when one of them got pregnant that's
another one of Jessica's stories but this lady also has another pregnant mom and we
are crossing our fingers that we can get her sent on transport soon before she has puppies
down here on to the cats and oh boy what a catastrophe that was the bee family was supposed
to be a mama cat and three eight week old kittens a stray cat had kittens in someone's
boat shed and they messaged us this week to take them Jessica actually texted me last
night and said I'm curious to see what kind of people these are when they show up tomorrow
will we look at them and think you have a boat shed well we absolutely did the husband
showed up with one of these like soft mesh cat carriers with all four cats inside cats
these kittens these eight week old kittens are probably like four months old so he gets
out of his super loud super huge truck and goes oh no these are super chill cats unzips
it just the tiniest bit and like a can of worms they all four come jumping out he managed
to close one of the kittens back up in the mesh bag Jessica caught one of the kittens
and threw it into our crate but the mom and the third kitten took off so I was following
the kitten but it ran underneath my shed and it went so far back that I couldn't reach
it so I laid there in the mud begging it just just to come a little bit closer and I could
hear the man all the way down the driveway handing the remaining kitten to Jessica and
saying alright thanks ladies bye just just left but before he closed his truck door he
said if y'all shake a bag of food they'll probably come back well I lay there a little
longer offering to sell my soul if it would just come out because I could not deal with
yet another missing cat Jessica ran to get a bag of cat food and brought it over to me
when I sprinkled just a little bit on the ground under the shed right where I could
reach it came running to me I grabbed it up headed straight for the garage because I knew
we just we needed a minute just to snuggle and love on each other before I tossed it
into the crate with its siblings and I was also so hoping that the mom had run into the
garage and the chaos just to hide and that she would come out if she saw the baby but
no luck we did tell all of our neighbors and it's a very cat friendly neighborhood the
barn across the street from the doghouse has 40 cats at last count probably more than that
and the lady takes fantastic care of them so we're confident that she's going to turn
up when things settle down tonight she's a very friendly cat so I really think we'll
get her back in the next few days zingers three kittens from another litter were posted
on Facebook Hope commented and the next thing we knew the person was messaging us saying
that the adorable kittens that we were offering to take were basically feral but that they
were working on catching them oh but by the way their mama who is not pictured is very
very pregnant so we sent her to a foster down here just to keep her until we could get around
transport for a few days so that we knew these kids wouldn't end up feral and in the meantime
the homeowners are trying to trap the three babies so that they can come up on a future
transport opera man showed up at an apartment in town and hung out for a few weeks before
someone eventually took him in and asked us to help he was at the doghouse for a month
and he's been the sweetest cat we're really sad that he's leaving because we all do like
him but he loves attention so we're really excited that he's gonna have a family the
J litter of two kittens came from a young kid in Oxford that was giving them away on
Facebook and that is all the stories for the animals that are on the van this week but I
do want to tell you one more story about a dog who's not on the van and I did debate
telling it because I do need to include a trigger warning for self harm so this is all the stories
for this episode you can just end this now if you do not want to hear the next story
this animal is not on the van and is not coming up so it's not a pertinent story but it is
such a sad and sweet and crazy story and I can't stop thinking about it and I just want
y'all to know it too so on the last transport we had the D litter for that came from the
same home we pulled Homer from a few years ago if you missed that story you can go back
and listen to it it's on the cutesy name episode but it's really not important to the story
while Jessica was picking those four puppies up though there was a house either next door
or across the street that had burnt to the ground the night before we found out that
it was an elderly man who lived there alone with one dog who he loved more than anything
he took this dog everywhere he went and he would just leave her in his truck if she
wasn't allowed to go in with him they were never apart well the old man had stage four
terminal cancer and was in a lot of pain I don't know if he was doing treatments or
if he was just sent home on pain management but it became too much for him and the other
night he took his dog outside he poured a full 50 pound bag of food on the ground for
her went back inside and set his house on fire he unfortunately or fortunately if you
want to look at it that way passed away in the fire the dog of course was terrified just
from being outside and away from the owner plus the fire trucks and all the commotion
she was just running from everyone like crazy and then just ran off and hit we were asked
to take her and are you kidding me I would have taken a man eating lion with a story
like this it completely broke me so Jessica went by to pick her up the next day and couldn't
even get close to her the other neighbors who were the ones who had asked us to take
her were out there trying to help catch her to apparently they were good friends with
the owner and thus thought they were good friends with this dog but they weren't able
to catch her with all the chaos either so they said she wasn't eating she hardly ever
laid down and rested she was always just running and pacing and you could just tell that her
world was shattered and she had no idea what to do anymore Jessica tried for a little bit
and then eventually just left because she could tell she was just stressing her out
even more everybody else left or just went inside their house to accept the man from
next door he sat out there with her for hours just waiting silently for her to come up to
him and when she did he put her leash on her and he brought her into his house with his
wife the dog walked in immediately started eating the food that they had put out for her
and then curled up in a ball and fell asleep for hours for hours and hours she slept so
the wife called to tell us that they had caught her but then said yeah there's no way we can
give her to you now though she's staying with us for good we are going to make sure she goes
everywhere she can with us for the rest of her life and you'll know I hate local adoptions
I want to get every dog out of here as fast as possible but this one I'll allow this one
that is the sweetest and most terrible thing I've heard in a long time and I hope so so badly
that wherever this owner is he's whole again and pain-free and can see that his neighbors
cared about him so much that they're gonna make sure his dog has the best life until she comes
home to him again so now that we're all crying I'm gonna sign off on here I love y'all so much
thank you for the ratings for the reviews for the subscriptions for caring enough to even listen to
this and wanting to know what's going on down here it's a ruff life but someone's gotta do it