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Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life! Today I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about

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what it is that I actually do down here in Mississippi. I primarily focus on intervening

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before animals even get to the shelter, because so many shelters are overrun with animals

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and have such a hard time keeping parvo and cocksidia and other deadly illnesses away,

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it works best for everyone involved if the animals we send were never even at a shelter.

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And most of the time, only people that live in city limits can even send their animals

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to a shelter, so most people that live out in the county have no resources available

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to them except for animal rescues.

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So what does this look like? As I mentioned in another episode, when people know you're

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involved with animals in any capacity, they will hunt you down. People at church, neighbors,

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random people on Facebook you're not even friends with, they will find you and they

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will beg you for help. Because we operate out of foster homes and because we have so

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few foster homes, we usually ask if the people are able to keep their animals until the

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day of transport. So conversations usually go like this. Hi, I have a dog that got pregnant

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and had eight puppies. They're six weeks old. Can you help me? And I will say absolutely.

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Are you wanting to surrender your mama too? Or would you like to keep her? No, we want

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to keep her. Great. Are you able to keep the puppies for two weeks until their transport

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day? If they say yes, we ask them if they need any supplies to get by in the meantime. Things

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like food, potty pads, play pens. If they say no, they're not able to keep them safe

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until transport or if it's a situation where puppies are just found and there is no owner,

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we move them into a foster home until transport. All of our animals are vaccinated, dewormed

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and seen by a vet prior to transport. However, we're in a unique situation because the rescue

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they're going to is run by a veterinarian. A lot of the other rescues that send animals

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from our area up north have to have them all spayed and neutered prior to leaving the state.

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Most of the time, the animals are sent from Mississippi and they go straight into the

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arms of their adopters. There is no foster period and there is no quarantining period.

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So anything those animals have to have done before getting adopted, things like microchipping

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or recovering from surgery or anything like that, it has to be done before they're sent

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on transport because they're going straight to the adopter. And that can really back up

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your foster homes down here if you're having to keep all of your animals for upwards of

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a month before you can send them. So we're really lucky that they go into foster homes

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up north where they can spend a minimum of three weeks after they're spayed and neutered

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and whatever else they need. But that's not always spent our time doing down here. When

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owners surrender puppies to us, but decide to keep the mama dog, they're given a spay

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voucher. This means they can call our veterinarian partners and make an appointment to have their

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dog spayed. And when it comes time to pay, they hand over the voucher card and we're

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billed instead of them. But a lot of times, even though the surgery is free, people can't

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afford to take off work and take their dog to the appointment or leave work early and

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pick them up. Some of the owners are older and aren't physically able to load the mama

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dogs in their car to take them. So we often end up going back to the homes and taking

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the dog to the appointment for them. If a mama dog happens to be a feral dog that just

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lives out in a field somewhere, we will trap the mama and have her spayed. If it seems

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like she can be rehabilitated and domesticated, she'll stay in a foster home with us until

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she's friendly enough. Like the dog I have right now. Her name is Peanut Butter because

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the first time I ever saw her wag her tail was after she had been with me for over five

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days and I let her lick some peanut butter off of a spoon. Her five puppies were easily

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caught when they were about seven weeks old and they went on transport a few weeks later.

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PB though had to be trapped and caught and she was by no stretch of the imagination ready

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to be put in a foster home. So she's staying with me until she gets more used to people.

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Right now she is absolutely loving indoor dog life. But she's still a little shy around

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new people. So for Peanut's situation, she will stay here until she's adaptable and

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then go on transport. But let's say she never comes around and she's never considered an

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adoptable dog. As long as she's an aggressive and actively attacking people and other dogs,

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we just find her a home down here as an outside dog. Kind of like a barn cat but a barn dog.

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Speaking of barn cats, we actually do a lot of TNR too. TNR stands for Trap Newt or Release.

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So if people call us and say we have 27 cats at our house and we don't know what to do,

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we'll help them trap all of the cats, pay to spay and neuter all of the adults, and send

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any adoptable or rehabable ones on transport. This is usually the younger adults or the

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kittens that aren't totally feral. And then we just return the rest. A lot of time, people

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don't have issues with a bunch of cats or a bunch of dogs living at their house. They

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usually aren't causing any problems and the people usually have a lot of land that the animals are

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living on. They just don't want them reproducing all the time. And it's so expensive to have that

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many fixed that they just can't do it on their own. They're always so grateful that we come in and

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pay to have it done so they can continue caring for the animals without having to worry if there's

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going to be double or triple that many animals by the next year. And I know I've been saying mommas

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during this whole episode, but that's primarily the only situations we see. Usually an unaltered

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male dog is just roaming around and you never see him knock up your mama dog. But in cases where

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the owners have the mama and the daddy dog, we absolutely pay to neuter him too. We would much

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rather you keep your adult dogs that we have made sure are no longer reproducing than surrender them

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to us and turn around and get a puppy or two a few months later who will be reproducing before

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you know it. And of course, these are all examples of people who take good care of their animals.

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Cruelty and neglect cases are a whole other story. Unfortunately, that's a story you will hear about

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fairly often in my episodes. It's a rough life, but someone's got to do it.