Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life. We are now three weeks into our five-week break,
and it is truly a rough life down here. We cannot wait for our April transports. But
even though there wasn't a transport today, I am going to tell you the backstories of our airplane
transport pups from February 11th. It has been the most requested podcast episode.
Two whole people asked for these stories. Before I start though, I want to tell you a little bit
about how this whole plane transport works. So you know, typically we use cargo bands to transport
our critters, but this time we partnered with a group called Amelia Air, and it's completely free.
Well, we bought them lunch. But that's only because our airport is literally just a metal
building, and there are no restaurants nearby. It's in a totally rural area, and there's not
exactly a drive-through that they can take their plane to. But the fact that they partnered with us
is huge. It is such an honor. They have a group on the west coast of the country, and then a group
on the east coast. These are full-time pilots that just volunteer their time in their planes on the
weekends to go pick up animals from one state and fly them to another. Again, this is completely free
for the rescues. But they are reimbursed $100 per animal that they fly. I don't know where the money
comes from, I guess, through grants and donors. They are a 501c3 non-profit, so maybe that's where?
I don't know. But they flew 52 puppies for us that day, so they got $5,200 for it. But that doesn't
even cover the cost of gas and the wear and tear on the planes. I don't know how much it costs,
actually, to keep a plane in shape, but I do know it's a heck of a lot more than $100 a pup.
So these pilots make $0 doing this. It's all just for the animals. It was super amazing because
they also found out the week of this transport that because we had so many small puppies,
like all the moms with newborn puppies that we were needing to get to Virginia,
they were actually able to come with two planes instead of one. So two pilots and two co-pilots
gave up their entire Saturday to make this happen for us. For free. It was amazing. So if you listen
to the March 8th episode, you'll remember from Mumbo Jumbo story that the airplane transport
morning started at 2am for me when I had to rush her to the emergency vet. So I'm just going to
pick up from there. I left my house in Alabama early that morning and drove the hour and a half to
the dog house in Mississippi where we do our transports. My mom was already there and because
she had been fostering the bee litter of nine rat terrier mixes, they were there too. We got the
bee litter from our rescue partners in another town. They reached out to us when someone contacted
them about a dog that had been left behind when the owners moved off and she had become feral.
She had the puppies sometime around New Year's Eve under a pile of wood in the neighbor's yard.
By the time the puppies were almost three weeks old, he still couldn't get anywhere near the mama,
but when the temperatures dropped to single digits, he was so worried that the puppies were going to
freeze to death. He brought the puppies in and started feeding them formula and gruel. We were
able to take the puppies for him a few days later. Unfortunately, we have not been able to catch this
mama yet. He still sees her around, but it's very infrequent. So it's hard when you can't figure
out a feral dog's routine to be able to sedate them or trap them. We won't stop trying though,
obviously, but at this point, I'm not sure exactly how feral she is. If she is just someone's pet that
was left behind and is doing what she has to to survive, we'll spay her and work with her until
she's adoptable, but if she's truly just feral, she'll be spayed and then taken back to where she's
living. My mother also had some overnight guests that were staying with her, their owner, and I
used that term lightly because she was really more like a hotel manager instead of their owner.
Wasn't able to bring them to transport that morning, so we got them the night before just
so that we knew they were going to be there for transport. Beagle mama Sally Ride and her nine
Beagle Healer Mix puppies were just about the cutest things ever. This probably makes me a
terrible animal rescuer, but I love their story. Sally Ride was just a stray dog, but once she
came into heat, there was a dog in the neighborhood like someone's pet and someone's fenced in backyard
that wanted to get to Sally so bad, but him's a chunky boy and he knew that it would take a lot
of work for him to dig a hole big enough for him to get out and get to her and he had a good life
with a good family. So like why would he leave? So instead he dug a little hole and little bitty
Sally Ride would just squeeze through that hole every day and come uh visit him. She would leave
and he would stay home and just wait for her to come back. She ended up having puppies I think on
their front porch or maybe it was even in their back porch in their in their fenced in yard. I'm
not sure, but they kept them there and they kept all nine puppies safe until they were old enough
to go on transport. I actually just found out yesterday that Sally Ride officially found her
forever home. Otherwise I was going to be hitting y'all with my She's the Best Dog spiel to get her
adopted, so you're welcome. You won't have to listen to that. So after we got those litters loaded,
we loaded the P-Litter of five. They were the Brittany Jack Russell Terrier mixes. They had
been staying at the doghouse. I actually just realized how perfect this is. Their mama is
Peanut Butter. I talked about her in an earlier episode. She was absolutely completely feral
when I got her the night before this transport. I just called her mama for the first three or four
days she was with me, but when I saw her wag her tail for the first time ever, it was when I was
giving her a spoonful of peanut butter. Thus she became peanut butter. So what a coincidence though
that her pups are the P-Litter pups. Anyways, we didn't have these puppies in our foster care for
long. They had been staying in another rescue's foster care, so when we went to load them, they
seemed off. Obviously on transport days, especially our parvo senses are heightened,
and we were worried that these weren't acting like typical healthy happy puppies. So we did a
parvo test and held our breath waiting for the results. Luckily they weren't negative. Hallelujah.
We actually talked to the foster that had had them and she said no, they're actually just super
lazy puppies. They also had the beginning signs of mange, so we went ahead and got them treated as
soon as we had gotten them earlier that week. Peanut butter also had full-blown mange and a nasty
case of mastitis from nursing. So the puppy's story is not that crazy, but peas kind of is.
She technically belonged to someone who had peanut, her litter mates, peanut's mom, and peanut siblings
from another litter. He does not take care of them and they survive by eating scraps out of
garbage cans and just hoping neighbors will throw some food out for them. Of course it seemed like
every day there was one less dog because they were all getting run over in the street. Peanut and her
mom were actually the only females that were left. A lot of times when stray dogs get close to
delivering puppies, it's like instinct takes over and they know they need to be near humans.
Like they know I'm not going to be able to go out and find food, so I need to find someone who will
bring the food to me. So as terrified as Peanut was, and believe me, it has taken weeks for her to
not be petrified of me, she moved herself over to a neighbor's porch and had her babies there.
I think the lady was even able to move the puppies inside and lure Peanut inside on some super,
super cold nights just so they didn't freeze to death. When the puppies were weaned, they were
easy to catch, but Peanut still wouldn't come to anyone. Another rescuer actually went out there for
us and set up a trap and put one of Pea's puppies inside so that she would go in it. Once they got
her, they took her straight to the vet to get checked out and we took her the next day. And I
do have reason to believe, hypothetically of course, that Pea's mom was also picked up by a
hypothetical neighbor and possibly taken to the vet to be spayed and brought back home a few days
later. Hypothetically. But let me go ahead and hit you with my Peanut pitch. She is still down here
with me, but I would absolutely love to send her on an April transport. We would typically send
dogs like Peanut to be a barn dog somewhere where she would have limited human interaction and live
outside with plenty of room to roam safely. But Peanut is too bougie for that. This hussey has
discovered indoor dog life and she says she ain't ever going back to being an outside dog. My dream
for her is that she would go straight into a foster to adopt home. The thought of her being
bounced around foster homes breaks my heart and I just I can't do that to her. Peanut's perfect
home would have a fenced in yard. She loves squirrels. So I'm positive she would run away chasing one
if she's not fenced in. Peanut also needs another dog. Actually, the more dogs the merrier. She loves
all dogs. She's actually a better mama to these 11 puppies that are in my dining room than their
mama is. Peanut is completely housebroken. She's fantastic on a leash. She's good in the car
and she's perfect with other dogs. She's just barely one years old. She's a jack russell terrier mix
and she weighs probably all of 20 pounds. Pee is very sweet with us, but even after having her for
over a month now, she will not come to us on her own. We can pet her, hold her, clip her nails,
kiss her all over whatever we want, but we have to go to her and get her. So she needs someone
that's going to let her take her time to find her safe space in their house and then push her to
come out of it. She's going to need someone that is patient with her but won't just let her hide
in the corner every day for the rest of her life. You're going to have to go sit with her in the
corner, pick her up, snuggle with her on your couch, take her for walks, take her for car rides.
She will be a fantastic dog. I have zero doubts about that. It's just not going to happen overnight.
You're going to have to work for her love. If you're interested in peanut, you can reach out to me
and I will absolutely spam you with adorable pictures and videos and all of the information you
could ever need on her. Okay, so back to transport. We get all of them loaded and then mama jacklyn
and her five dashhound mixed puppies arrive. Jacqueline is mumbo jumbo's sister. They were picked
up by animal control from the same house. I actually don't know any of the details other than
there were originally seven puppies and they saw two dead when they came to pick them up.
I don't know why they were going there to pick them up, but it had to be a pretty bad situation
for them to go out of their way to go and get all of them. We pulled Jacqueline and mumbo the day
after they got to the shelter. So typically they would have had to stay for a seven day stray hold.
So the fact that we were able to take them so quickly means whoever the owner was had surrendered
them willingly. Mama says no was also staying at the doghouse. She was in the laundry room
and it has a doggie door that leads to my garage and into my fenced in backyard. So we love putting
nursing mamas there. That way they can just let themselves in and out whenever they need to. Mama
says no and her babies were actually originally supposed to come home with me, but because mumbo
jumbo got bumped from the flight, they just swapped spots. Says no was found tied to a stop sign in
a nearby town. Someone had obviously dumped her there, but they at least had the tiniest bit of
decency to dump her there with her favorite toys. And that breaks my heart. The people who found her
took her home and realized right away that she was super pregnant. And that's more than likely
the reason she was even abandoned there. They let her stay in their shop where she delivered the
puppies and we took the whole family later that week. The A litter of 11 showed up after that.
They were owner surrenders. This was the mama dog's first litter. It was just a random stray male
that got her pregnant. But we got her spayed a few days later for them so she will not be having
any more puppies now. Jessica brought the W litter of three feists with her when she came to transport.
They were found in a storage container on the side of the road when they were just over two weeks
old and they had to be bottle fed by one of our fosters for a few days. When they were finally
eating on their own, they went to another foster and they were there until transport. The whole
airplane transport was such a cool experience. Usually I'm the one that's having to play the most
intense game up tetris trying to make sure all the crates fit. So it was a really nice break
not having to worry about that this time. The co-pilot on one of the planes was actually the
director for Amelia air. So she took care of all of that. We literally just pulled our cargo van
onto the runway and loaded all of our puppies into whatever plane she told us to. She also has to
make sure that the plane's weight is distributed evenly or something like that. So her Tetris game
is a little more dangerous than mine. We are hoping to do another transport with them maybe
later in April. Well I have to go now. I have 11 screaming puppies on my deck that have finished
their lunch and are ready to get tucked in for their nap in my dining room. It's a rough life but
someone's got to do it.