Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life. This episode is actually dropping a day late because
yesterday was my precious baby's 7th birthday and we spent all day doing all his favorite
things. We went hiking at our favorite waterfall spot and then we had dinner inside a cave
with our family. If you missed Ollie's background story a few months ago, make sure you check
it out so you can fully understand just how important this day is to us every year. But
let's get started. What a transport. We had seven adult dogs on this van and that makes
me happier than anything. There were also some super special babies on this load too.
So Earl Greyhound is a stray that was picked up by the shelter. The ACO texted a picture
to Jessica and Jessica sent it to me and said, would you kill me if I go get this one from
the shelter? I think it's a puppy. I wrote back and said, I will kill you if you do not
go get that baby. I do not care how old it is. I was actually hoping to get to foster
it but we ended up having someone in Virginia that was willing to foster it instead. So I
let him go. Poopay, otherwise known as doofus, otherwise known as tank, who is most frequently
known as stop is an eight month old albino doberman. I've talked about him before on
the episode titled storytime doofus. Make sure you listen to that episode if you missed
it so you can get a clear representation of what his foster is about to go through. Doofus
was taken to the vet at the end of February when he broke with Parvo. His owners told
my vets to do whatever it took to save his life, which they did. And then the owners
never came back to get him or pay his bill. The vet surrendered him to us after he spent
almost three months living at their clinic. He really, really is a sweet dog. Seriously,
I am so glad that they gave him to us. I know he will keep his new family laughing but golly,
I am not going to miss him one bit. He was awful.
Keely Jones is from our new shelter friends here in Alabama. She was actually born at
the shelter last year and has watched her mom and all her litter mates except for one
sister get adopted. She was super, super sick when she was a baby, but the manager at the
shelter took her home and worked around the clock for weeks to save her life. She is doing
absolutely fantastic now. She spent the majority of her life coming to work with her foster
mom at the shelter and hanging out with all her foster friends and then going back home
at night. Her foster mom was so tore up about sending her away, but like all of us at Animal
Rescue, she knows what a wonderful life she's going to have up north. Wonder Kid is an owner
surrender. She was part of the H-Litter from January 17th. The owners had given her away
to a friend before they asked us to take the other ones. The new family is elderly and
they didn't realize how much work and energy a puppy takes.
Coach Beard was found as a stray roaming the streets. He was completely matted to the point
that his urine would soak him every time he went potty because it couldn't get through
the hair. Someone picked him up and held on to him for a few days while looking for an
owner in the area. She then reached out to our rescue partners and asked if we could
take him. We held on to him for several more weeks looking for an owner, but no one ever
came forward.
The F-Litter of 2 are part of the Doodle Bunch that came last transport. Long story short,
their owner surrenders, but if you missed last week's episode, I do go more into depth about
their story. There are two more doodles that will be coming on the next transport.
The J-Litter of 4 were dumped in a neighboring town. The finder had to pull them out of the
bushes. They were scared to death. The finder kept them until transport because she knew
how many coyotes they had in their area and that if they weren't eaten, they would be
hit by a car before they got to leave for transport.
The B-Litter of 8's mama was a neighborhood dog that just roamed around. When she delivered
this litter of puppies, a neighbor heard the puppies crying and saw some kids throwing
rocks and sticks at them. She went and got them and kept them until transport. Mama was
spayed earlier this week and the foster is going to keep her.
The D-Litter of 4 is actually a Litter of 5. We held one of the puppies back due to ringworm
suspicions. You are welcome to whoever was going to have to foster her. This litter is
from our Alabama shelter and they were owner surrenders.
The M-Mama and her Litter of 7 are from the Alabama shelter as well. Mama was found at
the fairgrounds. Animal control actually had the hardest time getting her to come out of
whatever she was under. I think it was like a deck of some sort. She was acting like she
was just so vicious and they were scared to death of her. Turns out she was an active
laborer and was about to deliver puppies. She had the first one as soon as she got to the
shelter. She and her puppies have been at the shelter since the beginning of April.
The S-Litter of 8 were found in a box at our local park. Jessica pulled them during our
five week break where I gave strict orders not to pull any large puppies because they
would be humongous by the time we had transport. She texted me and said, A-C-O just messaged
me about some puppies found in a box. I'm gonna go get them. They're in a box. How big
could they be? I didn't answer her right away but honestly I probably would have agreed
with her if I did answer her. But the next text I got back from her said, Turns out they
were found at the box which is a storm shelter at the park. Not in a box. They're huge. Don't
kill me. And I was okay with all that. But then the next text I got was, So one of these
puppies can't walk. I think it's got a broken leg. I will understand if you kill me. I didn't
kill her. I wanted to but I didn't. And then my precious L-Litter of 3. I wasn't even gonna
send them. They actually weren't even on the list to go at all. But the morning of transport
we ended up getting several extra people that signed up to foster. So the way that works
on our end, if you didn't know, is when people sign up to foster there's usually a 50% chance
that it will actually pan out and they will end up fostering. When they sign up our foster
coordinator will reach out to them to go over everything and again 50% of the time they're
either like, Oh no. I didn't realize it was a live animal we'd be taking. Never mind.
Or I live in Canada. Is that too far away from y'all? They probably don't say y'all.
But seriously, like they can't pick up on pick up day or they can only keep them for
a few days. So just because we have 50 sign ups does not mean we're gonna have 50 fosters.
So anyways, I asked our foster coordinator if there was any chance that we would have
extra spots available. If so, I would bring my three babies to transport with me so they
could go. And then, you know, I would just bring them home if they didn't get to go.
So I brought them with and about an hour before the van was supposed to leave, they told me
we did not have enough fosters for them to go. But if I did a post on the Facebook page
and I found the fosters, they could go then. So I put a post up, but by the time we were
getting ready to load them on the van, we still hadn't found fosters for them. So I
was like, Oh, well, I'll just keep them. We can put a different letter in this crate
that we were going to put these in now, like we'll have extra room. So we unload some other
puppies, we move everyone around since we were going to have this empty crate. And literally
as we were closing the door on the van, I get a text that says, Do the van leave yet?
I've got fosters for them. So we rearranged everything yet again to squeeze my baby's
on so they could start their new life. They are actually part of the sick puppies that
I talked about in my podcast last week. I went to the shelter here in Alabama a few
weeks ago to drop something off. And like an idiot, I decided to walk through the shelter
to see the puppies I was coming back for in a few days. They are actually the M mama and
her puppies that I was going to see. Well, I apparently forgot to put my blinders on
as I walked through because when I passed these puppies, my heart broke. Oh my goodness,
they were so cute and they were so pitiful. There were six puppies at the time, two of
them, two of the three that left this week, were in a crate in the main area of the shelter
because they were relatively fine. Two others, the two I still have currently were in a crate
in the isolation room and they were absolutely terrified. They were probably like right at
three weeks old. They were curled up together looking so sick and so weak. And they were
shaking uncontrollably. And then another two, the third puppy that went this week and then
one that died the day I pulled them were also in that same quarantine area of the shelter.
It was so loud and so scary in there for them. You could just tell they were not doing well
at all. The shelter manager took them to the vet about an hour after I left the shelter
and I told her if this isn't something horribly contagious because you know, I do have other
animals at home and if the vet even sends them back today instead of keeping them overnight,
I'm coming back to get them as soon as they get here. So she texted me about 30 minutes
before the shelter closed and told me that the vet really didn't know what was wrong
with them but thought it might be possibly giardia, which is just you know, a sickness
in their intestines that you know, gives them really bad diarrhea and you know, they just
don't feel good. So I raced back to get them. I got them home literally through every medication
we had at them and about 20 to 30 minutes after we got home, one of them died in my
arms. It turns out this was actually a litter of nine originally. Well, kind of. There were
nine total. My two itty bitties that I still have are not part of the same litter of the
three that left. So I don't technically know which litters the four that died were part
of but regardless, there were nine and now there's five. They were all taken from the
same home so their cousins or half siblings or something. The house they were taken from
has over 40 dogs they said and they think there's still another litter there. These
three that left this week on transport are doing just fantastic. They actually really
were never that sick. Not on desk store anyways like the two I still have. There were several
nights where I would go to bed and I would look at these two puppies and think I sure
hope you're gonna be alive when I come back to check on you. But thanks to Lord they have
pulled through. They probably could have gone on transport with the other three too but
I'm still a little too obsessed with them for them to leave me so soon. When you take
care of puppies that are so sick for so long you form almost like a trauma bond to them.
I'm so used to checking on them every hour and poking medicine or fluids or food in their
mouths. I still need them here so I can physically see them and see how great they're doing
and how healthy they are. But trust me in a few days I will be begging for another foster
for them. As for the cats Higgins is from the Alabama Shelter 2. He was found as a stray
and brought in by whoever found him. The T mama and her kittens are from the shelter
2. They were picked up as strays when the kittens were newborns. Nathan Shelley was
found in a tree in someone's yard several weeks ago. Jessica went and got him last week
and almost didn't even let me send him on transport. She texted me after she had had
him for a few days and said, this kitten gets to sleep in bed with us that night because
he is so sweet and so well behaved. While he spends half the night kneading on my head
and he barely has his claws out so it feels so good. Like when you go to get your hair
washed at the salon but without the uncomfortable chair part. I told her I wasn't sure if he
had a foster yet and if he was going to get to leave on transport the next day but she
needed to bring him to transport regardless because if he didn't go I was taking him
home for my massage. The R litter of two kittens were bottle fed by one of our fosters when
we were contacted about a mama cat with newborn kittens who had all been killed by a resident
dog. So only these two kittens survived the mama and all the other litter mates were
killed by the dog. And that is all the stories for all 53 critters on the van this week.
As of right now our next transport isn't scheduled for three more weeks but I am hoping and praying
that something changes and they give me something sooner because we have got kittens and puppies
coming out our ears right now. But for now I am going to snuggle with my totally healthy
puppies that I have worked so hard on. It's a rough life but someone's got to do it.