Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life. We have
quite a few first time fosters fostering with
us this time, so welcome. We're super pumped
that you're fostering with us. I'm Katie Keaton.
I live here in Alabama and I find all of the
animals in Mississippi and Alabama that are sent
on transport. This is a podcast that I do to
share the background stories of my animals and
any information that I have on them from before
they came to me. However, I do spend a good portion
of the episode complaining about my life before
I even get to the stories, so feel free to fast
forward. For my returning listeners, I am very
proud to say that me, Melissa, and Chandler are
all still here. If you didn't know, the three
of us were more or less thrown into the foster
coordinating roles last transport when our prior
foster coordinator just went AWOL. So last transport
was their first time running intake and there
were a few hiccups but overall I think everything
went super smooth on all sides. We once again
had more than enough fosters signed up for this
transport thanks to all of you. We would have
been done confirming fosters on Tuesday but then
I added Hummingbird and her babies to the list
to be reassigned. Dr. Burton added three from
a local rescue up there. And then I got a call
about the J litter yesterday morning, and I had
to add them last minute because they were too
stinking cute. So we have been still confirming
fosters until yesterday. We're still in the process
of figuring everything out and we appreciate
everyone's patience and understanding right now.
It is so chaotic. We are all brand new at this,
still trying to see who does what best and what
the best way is to proceed with things. It's
still very fluid and there will still be a lot
of changes made down the road, but for now I
am super pleased with how it's all going. We
closed on our new house two days before the last
transport and then moved in the night before
the last public adoption event. I know that that
means nothing to you all, but those are literally
the two busiest days of the month for me. So
to have these huge life events happening at the
same time, man, I have been in a literal tailspin
since April 30th. We are still not unpacked or
anywhere close to unpacking. We have transport
today, church tomorrow, and Monday morning we
leave for a week -long trip to Florida. Don't
get me wrong. I am super excited to get to go
on this trip, very thankful that we're going
on this trip, super excited to get to spend the
time with Justin's family. But the idea of packing
up all of our stuff again... all of our 12 month
old stuff and all of our dog stuff when I don't
even know which house half of those things are
at right now. I can't talk about it anymore.
I am literally breaking out in hives right now
thinking about it. Moral of the story, Melissa
and Chandler are the only reason I'm still functioning
right now and I'm so thankful for them. Oh, and
I guess... I guess, Jessica. She is my longtime
rescue partner turned best friend down here.
I am pretty sure that we share the same brain
at this point because I don't even have to tell
her what needs to get done or what I need help
with. I'll just get a text a few hours later
saying whatever it was that I was needing help
with is already taken care of. She is definitely
earning her pay right now, which is a bummer
for her because I don't pay her anything. Maybe
someday, Jess. And I would say thanks to my mom
for all her help, except she abandoned me this
week to go on vacation herself right after we
moved into this house. What good is having a
mom if you can't even call her to come babysit
for you 24 seven? Oh, I forgot that we have new
listeners. My mom has stage four terminal breast
cancer, so. Obviously I'm kidding and obviously
I am very glad that she got to go on this nice
relaxing beach vacation. It was just bad timing
for me. Okay, on to the stories. The theme for
this transport is Formula One. I don't have a
clue what that is. I'm pretty sure it's an Askar.
I didn't do the names. I actually haven't even
looked at them yet, so I am really hoping that
I can pronounce them. Chandler took care of all
of that for me this week, which was a huge help.
One, because I didn't have to do it, but two,
because now I can just blame her when people
are fussing at me for the dumb names that their
fosters have. Because I am the one assigning
fosters now, I know who is coming in on intake
mornings for reassignments. So these are animals
that are already up there in the system and they
are just getting new fosters. Since I know who's
being picked up now, I am going to do just a
brief recap of the stories for those fosters
in case they're tuning into this transport. Hummingbird
came up on the bird transport on March 22nd.
You can go to that episode for more details on
her story. but she was super pregnant, ended
up giving birth just a few weeks later in Virginia.
Hummingbird had been seen at a gas station here
in town for several days in a row back in January.
We were about to have super freezing temps and
our town's doggy daycare owners saw her sitting
there and they took her home so that she wouldn't
freeze to death. They expected to find her owner
soon, but of course no one came looking for her.
They never do. Then... They realized that she
was pregnant and they kept her for us until we
could get her on transport. The foster who has
had her and her puppies in Virginia this whole
time said that she is the perfect dog and the
best little mama. If you are fostering one of
three puppies that have names that are not NASCAR
related, I don't know their names yet. They are
from a local rescue up there. I do not know what
rescue they came from, where they came from,
or any information on them at all. I know that
they were originally a litter of six and the
rescue found someone to take three of them, but
the rescue wouldn't take these three, so wolf
trap offered. And if you are fostering black
coffee and her... Kitty, Beans and the Bell Fry,
they are from the April 5th coffee transport.
Mama and her three kittens were from our Alabama
shelter friends. The other two kittens have already
been adopted, but Beans has not yet. Okay, so
that is everybody that's already up there that
is coming to intake. The rest of these stories
will be the animals that are being transported
on the van to Virginia for the first time today.
Pit Stop, formerly Booger, was an owner -surrender.
They are friends of ours from church. The husband
was diagnosed with stage four cancer and then
died literally just a couple weeks after the
diagnosis. It was... devastating so fast and
of course so shocking for the family. His wife
is elderly as well and just couldn't manage Booger
and his energetic goofball self so she reached
out to us to see if we could help find him a
better home. She was so tore up about giving
him away she said it felt like she was losing
her husband all over again because he loved this
dog so much but she knew that he would be happier
with another family. He has spent the last month
at Doggie Daycare down here and has been doing
great. Everybody loves him. He's best friends
with all the other dogs there. When Jessica texted
them yesterday to say that we would be picking
him up, her phone auto corrected his name to
Bogart. And the guy texted back and was like,
oh my gosh, we thought this whole time that you
said his name was Booger, we've been calling
him Booger. And she's like, oh no, it was just
auto correct. That is his name. And the guy was
like, oh good, because Booger is much more appropriate
for him. Oliver Behrman, formerly known as Parvo
Pup. He showed up at a lady's house one weekend,
just terrified and hid under her chair in her
garage the whole time. A couple days later, she
messaged us that she thought he was sick. So
she started keeping him in a live trap. after
that to be sure that her dogs didn't catch it.
We of course did not know that at the time. So
Jessica went by a day or two later and was just
going to give him some meds and assess the situation.
But when she saw one, where he was living and
two, how close to death he was, she immediately
brought him back to her puppy shed and got a
hard positive on the parvo test. So she started
him on fluids and meds, but he was so, so sick
and we were all so, so busy and she had other
healthy puppies that she was fostering as well.
He was not moving and had diarrhea literally
oozing out of him. She said, you can leave that
part out if you need to, but y 'all need to hear
that too. So we decided for the first time ever
that we were gonna take him to the vet and leave
him there for treatment. We usually treat all
of our parvo puppies ourselves, but again, we
are... We are in a tailspin right now. So he
stayed in the ICU there for six days getting
IV fluids and meds until he finally started keeping
food in him. Jessica wanted me to point out,
not to brag, that it was actually her boiled
chicken that he finally started eating. That
was the first thing that he started eating. He
spent the next week and a half in isolation where
he finally started gaining some strength and
getting his appetite back. He's been up at Jess's
house since his negative parvo test last weekend
and he's getting more and more energetic each
day and we are so excited to see him coming out
of his shell. He's still a little head shy and
just getting to where he isn't scared of her
backyard, so it'll be super fun for whoever's
fostering him to watch him come out of a shell
and turn into a full -fledged annoying puppy.
The Y letter of two were owner surrenders. Non
-rescue people down here call this an oops litter
those of us in rescue call it a how can you be
so irresponsible and let dog after dog after
dog of yours continue to get pregnant litter
so this guy's bulldog got knocked up by a neighborhood
dog he assured me that she's the only dog that
he has now that hasn't been spayed That would
be because we have spayed and or taken all of
his other dogs, but whatever. Nonetheless, they
are still super precious little puppies. Usually
this guy will give away as many puppies as he
can and then reaches out to us to take whatever
is left over. This time she only had two puppies
and he contacted us when they were two weeks
old. So we will at least give him credit for
that and we will be getting his mom spayed for
him. The E letter of two. Someone was walking
with his four dogs out in the boonies. So basically
just walking down a semi -paved gravel road with
woods all around. His dog started going crazy
and sniffed out these two puppies which were
off on the side of the road and some really tall
grass in the ditch. He couldn't leave them there
so he brought them home with him and contacted
us and agreed to keep them until transport. The
J letter of two, our owner surrenders. Okay,
newbies, if you haven't listened to my other
episodes, I used to be an elementary school teacher
many, many moons ago. I retired. I retired at
the ripe age of 23. when Dr. Burton offered to
match my teaching salary if I would come on full
time with Wolf Trap, but I still get contacted
fairly often by my former co -workers and former
students' families to take animals for them.
So these two are part of a litter of six that
belonged to one of my former students. They were
supposed to give me three puppies, but decided
at the very last minute to keep another one in
addition to the other one that they were already
keeping. They currently have those two puppies,
the mom, who is an Aussie -Palm mix, the dad,
that's a purebred Great Pyrenees, and then a
random stray that looks a lot like a Roddy mix.
So fingers crossed that they come to their senses
soon and surrender the other puppies to me soon.
They gave away the other two puppies, I don't
know who has them, but I did tell her that if
she would surrender at least one more puppy to
me I would give her a spay voucher for the mom
so hopefully she will take me up on that. The
M litter of seven Their mom was run over when
these puppies were about two weeks old. They
were posted on our rescue Facebook page and our
bottle feeding foster offered to take them. They
bottle fed them until they were weaned and then
Mama Becky took them for a little while and then
we sent them to another foster when my mom left
for vacation. So these puppies have been all
over the place. The A litter of 10 have quite
a story. We got a call one morning about them
from someone who said they had found 10 puppies
on the side of the road and couldn't take them
home, so they just left them there. Then we got
a call that afternoon from someone. I guess it
was later in the evening. It was pretty late.
We got a call that night from someone who found
six puppies on the side of the road and was going
to take them to Walmart the next day to give
them out in the parking lot. And then the next
day we got a message from a man that said he
found 12 puppies on the side of the road, picked
them all up and took them home with them. After
comparing the pictures and locations from all
three stories, we realized these were the same
puppies the whole time. The person who took all
12 of them home gave one away and was going to
keep two for himself, but thankfully when Jessica
went by to vaccinate them, she was able to convince
him to give us the 10th one as well. The R letter
of six are owner surrenders. The owners brought
them to Dr. Jamie's clinic. newbies. Dr. Jamie
is one of our local veterinarians. She was Dr.
Burton's student many years ago at Mississippi
State vet school and turned into her lifelong
best friend. Now we help her out with rescues
and she helps us out with surgeries. The owner
said that the mom was dumped at their house and
they were fine with keeping her and they were
about to make a vet appointment with Dr. Jamie
to have her spayed when they realized she already
had milk and was super pregnant. So they have
an appointment to spay her next week and we will
pay the bill for them. Okay, for the cats we
have Zach Brown, not the band. A lady was picking
up door dash delivery at Checkers in town and
she heard him crying in the bushes. She got out
in the drive through and followed the sound and
he practically jumped into her arms. She saw
Jessica's post that a mutual friend had shared
about our B2Cast fundraiser that we're doing
right now and all the kittens that she had posted
in there so she messaged B2Cast to take him.
Claire Williams is an owner surrender. The owner
is a client of Dr. Jamie. Dr. Jamie sent me her
picture and asked if I was interested at all
in taking her, and I think it took me all of
two seconds to say, uh, heck yeah. Okay, Amala?
Emola? Amala? Emola? No, I think it's Emola.
Emola, if you have the I litter kitten. She was
found shut up in a box in someone's driveway.
The homeowners are elderly and they don't walk
to the end of their driveway very often, so it
is a miracle that they found her. The box was
taped shut and close enough to the road that
someone could have run her over very easily.
Lewis Hamilton was found wandering through someone's
yard when he was about five weeks old. They never
found the mom or any other kittens and they called
one of our rescue partners to take them. The
G litter of two wandered up to someone's house.
She posted them on Facebook and Jessica nabbed
them up because they are so cute. The T litter
of five were found in a flower bed. They were
left for a day hoping that the mom would come
back, but she never did. So one of our rescue
partners got a call about them, took them home
and they were so young that she actually had
a bottle feed them for a little while. The S
mama and her four kittens were owner surrenders.
I'm going to read y 'all exactly what Jessica
wrote about them. She said, quote, their story
is pretty boring. This lady's car got pregnant,
but I've had really good stories this week so
we can just look past this one. Someone's car
getting pregnant would have been a really interesting
story, Jess. I wish you would have elaborated.
Obviously, she meant cat. That is all of the
stories for this week. I am actually on my way
out the door to go to transport now So fingers
crossed that everyone shows up. Everyone is healthy
and no one shows up with more than they're supposed
to Except those jay puppies. I'm really annoyed
about that still I'm hoping she has a change
of heart and will give me the other ones Thank
you so much for fostering. Thank you for listening
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