Hello friends! Welcome to Ruff Life. I am trying
really hard to have my life a little more put
together and organized, so I am recording this
podcast before transport. I need to leave in
11 minutes, so you can look right now at how
long this podcast episode is and let me know
if I'm going to make it on time or not. The theme
of this week's transport is in memory of Jane
Goodall I'm sure you've all heard by now about
her passing away this week She was actually one
of dr. Burton's idols. So the theme is endangered
species and Just as a funny note or embarrassing
note, this is a fairly large load that we're
sending. It's 63 total animals. I was worried
I wouldn't have enough endangered species to
use for names, especially because one of these
is a litter of 14, so I had to have 14 names
that start with the same letter. So I thought,
well, you know, worst case scenario, I can use
extinct animals too, like if it comes down to
it. So I googled how many endangered species
are in the world? Do you know? I'll give you
a second to think about it and come up with a
guess because I will bet that you are wrong.
47 ,000 species. And that includes plants, which
since I am laying all my cards out and telling
you how dumb I am already. I'll go ahead and
let you know. I didn't even know plants could
become extinct, so that was interesting. If we
could find a way to make kudzu extinct, that
would help my anxiety greatly. But 16 ,000 animal
species are endangered. 16 ,000! That's insane.
Who even knew that there were even 16 ,000 different
species? So since we just did ocean animals not
too long ago as a theme and then birds not too
long before that, I kept this to just endangered
land animals since apparently we have so so much
wiggle room now we're gonna get real specific.
Some of those names were super long like four
or five words which is crazy and possibly has
something to do with why they're going extinct.
But for everyone's sake, I shortened the names
as best I could. So you may be looking at your
foster named Gerbil and thinking gerbils aren't
endangered. I've got five in my kid's bedroom
right now. And you're right. But the Morocco,
the Western Morocco gerbil is same for bison.
Bison are fine, but the wood bison and the yellow
plains bison, the yellowstone plain bisons are
threatened. So we're just going to worry about
all bison for short. Also, how funny is it that
last transport was a two van transport because
I physically could not, humanely or inhumanely
for that matter, I could not fit all the animals
in one van and we only sent 54 total animals.
Today is 63. And they will all fit humanely,
humanely will fit on one van, which is so crazy.
But we had so many adults and big, huge puppies
on the last transport that everybody just took
up so much room. Everyone this week is pretty
small. OK, on to the stories. Okay, my friends
that are fostering puppies from litters, I am
not going to say every single animal's name.
The first letter of your foster's name is the
litter name. So for example, Tiger is the T litter.
He's part of the T litter. Lion is the L litter.
There's not enough time. I was going to say in
the world, but really there is enough time in
the world, but there's not enough time before
transport for me to read off every single animal
name. And to be honest, I can't even pronounce
half of them. So the only animals that get their
names read are singles that aren't part of a
letter. So let's go. Orangutan was posted on
Facebook. He had wandered into someone's yard
and they weren't able to keep him. Ariel, actually
one of our Wolf Trap staff members just happened
to see it posted in this Facebook group and she
tagged me begging to pull him. I messaged the
finder and told her that we would come and get
him. And then she actually offered to hang on
to him until transport for us. So we'll see if
she really shows up today. I'm I'm skeptical.
Rhinoceros was dumped at my stepbrothers house,
my sweet precious baby nephews who are on a rescue
high. After they saved the R litter of seven
on the Wiggles transport, they just fell in love
with him and they begged, begged, begged their
dad to call his dad, my mom's husband, to come
and get it because they didn't want a coyote
to eat him overnight. So my parents went and
got him and then my mom kept him at her house
until transport. Asian Elephant was found in
a pool skimmer and posted on Facebook for free.
Our rescue partner Tasha sent her daughter to
rescue him and there were no other puppies or
mom that was ever found. Pangolin was supposed
to be on the bread transport last week. I'm still
so bummed about this. She was going to go with
her also pregnant sister friend and their names
were going to be Hot Dog Buns and Hot Cross Buns.
how cute well hot cross buns now pangolin decided
to go into labor the morning of transport so
she obviously missed the boat although uh her
sister hot dog buns ended up giving birth on
the transport van on the van which of all the
transports for this to happen to it was actually
fine because she had a much bigger crate than
she normally would have if it was just a one
van transport but she had the penthouse suite,
so it was fine. So pangolin actually the dog
that's coming today. She actually gave birth
to one puppy It was stillborn Unfortunately,
and we waited for 24 hours for her to have another
puppy, but none ever came So we sent her to dr.
Jamie's who if you didn't know was dr. Burton
student here at Mississippi State University
so many years ago and They ended up being lifelong
best friends. We helped dr. Jamie out with animals
I get dumped at her clinic and she helps us with
low -cost veterinary care. So she checked her
out and there we just wanted to make sure there
were no other puppies stuck somewhere or anything.
But nope, it was just one puppy and it didn't
even make it. It's not all that surprising that
it was stillborn. That's super common down here.
There's usually at least one stillborn puppy
in every litter because they typically have no
prenatal care, so much stress, rarely any food,
let alone good quality and reliable food. but
it is really weird that she only had one puppy.
That's not very common. She seemed really sad
and anxious the first few days, but then I think
she quickly realized how much better she felt
now that she wasn't pregnant anymore and that
she didn't have any dumb babies to worry about,
so she perked right up and she has been happy
as can be ever since, and we are so so glad that
Dr. Burton will spay her so that she never has
to go through this again. The L litter of six
were born to a stray mama dog. She wandered up
to one of our rescue partners Foster's homes
and gave birth. They fell in love with the mama
dog and are going to keep her and we will pay
to have her spayed for them. The H litter of
five are owner surrenders. Okay, my OGs that
are listening, do you guys remember the Mastiff
mob? The Mastiff mama would have like 14 puppies
every litter and the owners refused to spay her
for so long and then they finally let me I mean
like I think it was like three litters and they
finally let me okay well apparently they've switched
to Australian cattle dogs now and while we're
still on the topic of how dumb is Katie um I
I just learned today that healers, healer mixes,
healer is not a breed. I thought like red healer,
blue healers, those were breeds of dogs. They
are not. They are actually all Australian cattle
dogs. So I'm not even kidding you, 30 years,
my whole life, I thought Australian cattle dogs
were one breed and healers were another breed.
So... I don't know if that's just me and I'm
just really dumb and never realized that or like
is this news to everyone else? Like tell me in
the comments or something if this was brand new
information to you as well. So apparently this
family has now switched to Australian Cattle
Dogs, which let me just say they called them
purebred blue healers. So I know that I'm not
the only one in the whole world that thought
that. They so the Mastiff mom is spayed. She's
still alive. They have her they love her now
They have two purebred all showing cattle dogs
that they bred together and they were going to
sell the puppies But apparently they were only
able to sell seven of the puppies and they are
quote -unquote letting letting me have the other
five, how generous. And y 'all know, my rule
is you have to give me the whole litter in order
for me to spay your mom for free, because otherwise
what's the point? This is dumb. But it didn't
even matter this time. I offered to pay her anyways,
just because we know they're repeat offenders.
And I was like, whatever, if I can get this mom
spayed, I'm doing it. And they said no. They
said they want to breed her one more time and
then I can spay her. So I guess we'll be getting
another litter from them in six to eight months
when they can't sell those puppies either. The
C litter of nine have a very similar story to
the H litter, but this is an entire different
family who owns these. So these are not related
at all. It's just they're dumb too. These puppies
are from the same mom as the C litter of eight.
from the April 19th love on the spectrum transport,
I go into a full deep dive of like the family
history and the story on that episode. So I encourage
you to go listen to that if you're fostering
one of these. But long story short, they won't
let us spay this mom for them because they want
to their plan is to breed her with their sister's
doodle so that they can sell Pyrenees doodle
puppies and make some money. However, they have
no concept of how mating dogs works, and they
don't understand that an unaltered male dog will
do absolutely whatever it takes to get with a
female in heat. And so then they're shocked when
their solid white great Pyrenees dog gives birth
to black and brown puppies. They called these
puppies ugly. They were like, yeah, some of these
are really ugly. oh okay yeah they're real ugly
let me have them anyways they did let us spay
the mama of this mama after the last litter that
we took so the grandmother of of all these puppies
is spayed and that does help my feelings a little
bit and they were going to let their two boys
who are just elementary school age keep two of
the male puppies until we had a long talk with
them and about how many dogs they were going
to have and all the inbreeding that was going
to be going on so they did last night literally
night before transport let us have the last two
puppies so i'm very relieved that they're giving
the whole litter to us I go back and forth on
my feelings about situations like this all the
time. But the bottom line is this, and I'm saying
this to me mainly to remind myself, these puppies
are going to have the best lives and they are
not going to be adding to the overpopulation
crisis in our state. Period. End of story. Is
it terrible that they are breeding the mom? Absolutely,
and my heart aches for her that her body has
to go through this so often. But these puppies
and even the H litter puppies from the last story,
they are all so stinking cute and so adorable
right now. These owners would have absolutely
no problem taking them to Walmart and giving
them away for free in the parking lot or even
posting them on Facebook and making $20 a puppy.
I can promise you. they will get rid of these
puppies in a heartbeat. Like anyone would want
these puppies. And I can promise you that none,
none of these puppies would be spayed or neutered.
And we would have 14 unaltered dogs reproducing
in six months. So I hate it. I hate helping the
owners. I hate feeling like I'm enabling them,
but I just keep reminding myself that I'm really
just helping these innocent puppies and that's
the important part. I don't want to burn bridges
with these owners because like both of them,
they finally let me spate the mast if mom, she's
not having puppies anymore. If we wouldn't have
continued our relationship with them, she would
still be having puppies and they would just be
giving them away nonstop. This family with the
with the Great Pyrenees, they finally let me
spay the mother of of everybody. And so now she's
not reproducing anymore. She just gets to live
her life and it's her daughter now. So. It's
just we just we can't burn the bridges as badly
as I just want to torch them. and we have at
least gotten through to the owners of this mama
this Pyrenees mom how bad it is for her to have
puppies every single heat cycle so they are at
least going to wait a year before they breed
her with the doodle and maybe they'll come to
their senses before then and let me spay her
but but all of the puppies are going to be safe
and loved and sterilized The G litter of 9 were
born to a stray mama dog. She wandered up to
someone's house and gave birth. They contacted
our rescue partners to take the puppies and they're
keeping the mama dog so we'll spay her for them.
The T litter of 14 are not a litter of 14 and
their date of birth is wrong too. It's actually
a litter of nine and a litter of five and they
were born two weeks apart at the same home. But
the owner doesn't know which ones are part of
which litter. So we just combined them to one
family and split the difference on their date
of birth. So nine of these puppies are actually
one week older and five are actually one week
younger than what their date of birth says. But
good luck figuring out which ones are which.
A man and his wife moved next door to her brother
a couple years ago to help take care of him and
they have just watched his dogs have litter after
litter after litter every six months. The brother
has some mental issues and he isn't the easiest
to deal with. They are pretty sure that he took
the last litters and dumped them somewhere or
worse right after they were born. And so when
two more of his dogs got pregnant, they finally
convinced him to let them help. So they contacted
another rescue first. They contacted several,
actually. None of them were able to help. And
two of them even gave out our information. And
one of them gave Jessica's personal cell phone
number, actually. And that's what she gets for
answering unknown numbers all the time. If she
was like me and never answered her phone, no
one would bother to give out the number. They
have taken excellent care of all of these puppies
and they are so, so, so extremely thankful for
all of our help. The mamas are already scheduled
to be spayed and we'll be paying for that. And
the owner, the brother has turned over ownership
to them, to the brother, to the sister and his
wife. So everyone is just very relieved in this
whole situation. As for the kittens, the B litter
of six were found on the side of the road with
their eyes still closed, so like less than a
week old, and the person who found them took
them to our bottle feeder foster. And the S litter
of nine, our owner surrenders. Again, this was
two litters that morphed into one. They've all
been taken care of and socialized, and the two
moms are already scheduled for spec. That is
all of the stories. What am I at? almost 20 minutes.
I drive really fast though, so like it's okay.
I can make up some of this time. Thank you so
much for listening. Thank you so much for fostering.
Thank you so much for supporting us. If you can,
please leave a comment if you're listening on
Spotify or rate, review, subscribe, all the things.
I know everyone hates that we have ads. I hate
it too, but we're monetized. That's so exciting.
I want to quit my job so bad and just Make money
from the podcast so that the rescue gets to keep
all my money and I can do my job for free We
also have our 10 -year anniversary party coming
up so if you are fostering right now for the
first time or if you are fostering for a millionth
time, please come to the party. It would be so
fun to see everybody and see everyone's pictures
and all the family reunions. And we've got like
a ton of stuff that we're auctioning and raffling
off. It's a ton of really cool stuff. So make
sure you check that out. It's a Ruff life, but
someone's got to do it.