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Hello friends! Welcome to Rough Life. These three transports have come and gone so fast.

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I'm hoping the next five weeks fly by too. If you're new to WTAR, I don't want you to

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think this is normal. We do not typically take 10 weeks off in the first six months

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of the year. This is a special year and Dr. Burton's getting married. She's not taking

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five weeks off, but because it's so much work on her to spay and neuter everyone before

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they're adopted and always being on standby in case someone gets sick and needs help,

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we needed to time transport so that everyone would be done with surgeries and up to date

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on all their vaccines by the time she leaves for her wedding in her honeymoon. So they're

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still going to be working these next three weeks until this transports adoption date.

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We just can't send anything until they get back in June, which is a bummer, but totally

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understandable. I actually crunched the numbers a few days ago. Fun fact about me, I am slightly

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dyslexic and am shockingly terrible with numbers, but I love transport data. I have

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literally a million spreadsheets with all kinds of transport information on them. So

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I was looking the other day and we have sent over 471 animals so far in the first six months

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of 2023, despite taking 10 weeks completely off. That's 352 puppies, 31 adult dogs, 63

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plus kittens, the plus because one of our pregnant cats is still pregnant up there,

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and 25 adult cats. We're averaging about 35 puppies and three adult dogs on every transport

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right now. And compared to last year in the first six months of 2022, we did 511 total

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animals, only 38 more last year than this year. And we worked every week last year. Last

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year at this time, we had 393 puppies, 45 dogs, 62 kittens and 11 adult cats. We were

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averaging 32 puppies and 3.5 adult dogs per transport last year. It always makes me laugh

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when it says like 0.5 because I'm like, yeah, no, we can only take half year adult dog this

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week, we'll have to get the other half next week. So that's not too shabby. If I do say

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so myself, considering we took so much time off, but I already told Dr. Burton I am never

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doing this again, so you better make sure this is her one and only wedding. Anyway,

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let's get into the background stories. Don't Rock the Jukebox was posted on Facebook by

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one of my friends. Her cousin gave him to her. He could no longer keep the puppy. He

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is a purebred eight week old blue fawn pit bull. And when I saw him, I immediately called

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Jessica who's better friends with this girl and told her get him for us right away. Hey,

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because he's adorable. But more importantly, because Mississippi does not need another

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purebred unaltered male pit bull running around. The girl met one of our fosters at a gas station

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a little while later to give him over. And it's a fairly sketchy gas station. And she

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said six different people asked if they could buy him from her just while they were there.

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The are litter of two were dumped at a friend of mine's house. She posted them as free on

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Facebook and I asked her if she could hang on to them until transport for us. They were

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a little mangy when she got them, but she took them to the vet and got them started

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on medicine for it. All red and her four Oh puppies were owner surrenders. Red was getting

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off her chain and the owner kept getting citations for it because she lived in the city limits

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and you cannot let your dog be walking loose. When the animal control officer came a second

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time, she didn't want to pay the fees. So she said she would just surrender the mom and

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four of the five puppies to the shelter. She said she was keeping a puppy because and this

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is a direct quote. The mom was getting old. When the ACO officer told her that he is a

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kill shelter and the mama would be euthanized if she didn't find a home in time, she said,

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that's fine. He did get her to agree to keep the puppies until we had a foster open to

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take them. He did this so they wouldn't be at risk for catching parvo or anything. Unfortunately,

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the place they were living with so awful, I think they probably would have rather taken

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the risk of getting parvo. Jessica went out there a day or two later to vaccinate them

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before we took them to a foster home. And she said it was so terrible, we need to define

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someone else to take them sooner because they couldn't stay there two more days. Luckily,

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we found a foster to take them the next day. Meanwhile, red was taken to the shelter all

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alone. No toys, no bed, no comfort blanket. They didn't even tell him her name. She did

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say though that red is a nine year old purebred chocolate lab, which I don't believe. And

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that this was her third glitter. We took red to the vet the next day and she had the worst

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case of ear mites I have ever seen. Imagine tiny little bugs crawling deep inside your

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ear canal 24 seven it is maddening and hers were so bad. And of course she has heartworms.

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We did end up doing some PI work. And we found out that her real name is actually Coco. And

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if you hear anything in the background, that is Coco trying to get in this room with me

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because she does not like it if she cannot be touching me 24 seven. We've just been calling

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her big red. But when I found out her name was Coco, and I said it for the first time,

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I wish I would have recorded it, but I didn't. I honestly didn't think it was really her

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name. But so I called her Coco for the first time. She hadn't heard her name in at least

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five days. Who knows how often they even said her name to her. But she looked up at me with

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the sweetest look in her eyes like, That's me. You know me. It was so sweet. She wagged

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her tail so sweet. You could tell she was like, You finally know who I am. You figured

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out what my name is. It was precious. The a litter of five Beagle mixes were kind of

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an owner surrender. Pregnant Beagle Mama wandered up to someone's house and had five puppies.

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The homeowners love the mama so much that they are going to keep her and spay her with

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one of our voucher cards. But they did surrender all of the puppies to us. The sea litter of

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lab mixes were found on the side of the road when they were about probably eight to 10

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weeks old. When the finder asked us if we could take them, we had no room on transport.

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Then he asked us to take them when we were closed for March and April. Then another

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rescue was going to take them but couldn't. And then he finally reached out to us right

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before this last transport and said he still needed help. So we're so glad we finally got

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them on this last transport because they would have been gigantic by June. The be litter

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of seven feist and boxer mixes were actually dumped at the landfill. One of the workers

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saw them running around one day and called us to come get them. He actually tried to

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keep one of them to be the landfill puppy. But thankfully we talked him out of that.

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They never saw a mama dog, although there is another mama dog, not their mama though,

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that lives at the landfill. That's totally feral that we've been trying to trap for a

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while. The F letter of three feist dashhound mixes were posted on Facebook as free, not

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even free to a good home. Just quote, if you want one, tell me now. She actually only posted

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one puppy and said in the post quote, there might be two or three other ones around here

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somewhere. So needless to say, they came from a horrific home, their pen or maybe it was

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even just the ladies whole backyard looked like it needed to be condemned. The age litter

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of five labs were owner surrenders. The mama dog just walked up to someone's house one

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day and their male dog fell in love with her. Neither were fixed. So no one was shocked

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when she ended up pregnant. Luckily they got their male neutered and are using a spay voucher

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to spay the mama. The two are so in love though that they can't bear to separate them. So

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they're going to keep the mama to the tea litter of eight lab shepherd mixes are owner

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surrenders. The mama dog belongs to a 72 year old almost completely blind lady. Her husband

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died recently and her children got her the dog to make her feel safer at night because

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she refuses to go to a nursing home. And what do we know about dogs? They reproduce. So

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it should come as a surprise to know one that the dog wound up getting pregnant. A foster

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for one of our rescue partners took the mama and her babies to her house until transport

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so that the owner wouldn't have to take care of them or risk tripping over them. We spay

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the mama and she's back taking care of her old lady once again. As for the cats, mamas

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don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys is a very long name but a very good song.

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She is the mama of the age litter of four kittens from last week and I know I know I

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should have picked an age name but I love this song and she's the only mama that I

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could use that on because all red had to be named old red. Remember she was brought into

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the shelter after I left last week and the man was carrying her in his arms like a baby.

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The W litter of three were owner surrenders. A young couple moved into an apartment and

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soon discovered a mama cat had delivered kittens inside their walls. One of our rescue partners

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picked up the kittens as soon as they were weaned because they had really irritated eyes

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probably from all the insulation in the walls. After a couple days of medicine though the

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kittens are doing fantastic. So I was done with my podcast already had it ready to upload

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and everything before I left to go to transport today and when I stopped at the shelter I

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picked up the mama cat from the kittens from last week and just as I was getting ready

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to leave one of the employees walked in with a super adorable long hair kitten. She was

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like someone just dropped these off their owner surrenders. I'm like hang on let me face

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time Dr. Burton well she didn't answer. So I texted Jenny and I said are you with Dr.

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Burton and she said yeah we're in a team meeting right now what's up. I'm like face

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time me. So I face timed her and I showed her the kittens and Dr. Burton said no absolutely

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not and then Jenny passed the phone around to everyone sitting around the table and they

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were like oh my gosh they're so cute. Pull them. So Dr. Burton was like fine you can send

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them. They were so stinking cute. So I don't really know the full story with them. They

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said this lady has a hundred cats literally. They said literally a hundred cats and she

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just brings them in every so often litter by litter. So I don't know where the mother

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is of these kittens. They said she was supposed to bring it in too but she never did and I

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kind of got the impression that these kittens were supposed to be brought in earlier than

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they were. But anyways I had to jump back in and add that so you guys would know their

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story too. And that's all the stories for this week. I'm sure you noticed Peanut Story

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wasn't in there. She didn't have anyone sign up for her which I cannot believe because

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she is so little and she's so sweet. But that just means she's going to hang out here with

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me until June. It's going to be another long five weeks until the next transport but you

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already know I've got lots of stories for you in the meantime. Let me know if y'all

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want me to do another episode with Jessica and Becky or even just an FAQ episode if you

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have some unanswered questions. It's a rough life but someone's got to do it.