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This evening, just as I was getting supper on the table, my dear old friend called and asked if I was up for rescuing a mama dog who had apparently whelped her litter under someone's deck. My friend is president of the local humane society and pretty much the switchboard for animals in need when animal control isn't around (which means evenings, weekends, holidays and lots of other times). She's battled pancreatic cancer, several heart attacks and is a little older than my mother, but not much stops her when there's a call for help. I'm just the muscle, but we've had our assorted adventures over the past 20 odd years.
Roping my husband into action, we gathered shovels, flashlights, hotdogs and met my friend at the house, about 20 miles away. The homeowner is a tiny little lady with an immaculate home and an assortment of dogs, so the mama dog made a wise choice in that regard. Her location under the back deck, not so much. Last week we had about 18" of snow and it was a whopping 9 degrees this morning, though it did warm up to the 20s, it's still far too cold for newborn pups.
Walking was treacherous, snowbanks were high, daylight just about gone. There was a smidge of space cleared to get on my knees and peek under the deck, which was too low to get more than my arm & head under. Mama was just out of arm's reach, appeared to be a biggish husky/shepherd mix. She didn't growl or even acknowledge my presence, being very busy cleaning her puppies. I managed to snag a couple of the pups with a little toy leaf rake, which she'd do her darndest to grab back, and pass them out to the others waiting with towels, but it took some time and improvisation to finally get a lead to loop over mama's head and drag her out. Then the rest of the pups, except for one little adventurer that thought he needed to crawl further away and almost made it, I barely caught his tail in time. Their cords weren't dried up, so they weren't very old, and they certainly had lungs that worked.
Homeowner was willing to keep mom & pups in her house overnight til the shelter opens tomorrow and space is found there. I'm soaked from laying in the snow for nearly an hour and I know I can feel things crawling in my hair and down my neck (not really, it's too cold for anything to actually be moving, but still, I don't do creepy crawlies very well). As I have puppies of my own at home, we sprayed ourselves down with the bottle I keep in the van before we got in, then stripped on the deck at home and bolted straight in to the shower.
The stray mama with a likely dubious history of any kind of health care or proper diet managed to dig under a deck and whelp 7 variegated puppies in freezing temperatures in dirt and rocks. Last weekend, one of my Labs, despite progesterone timing, 1000 miles of travel to the stud, holistic diet, supplements, blood tests, xrays and pretty much 9 weeks of pampering, managed to whelp one puppy in her heated, padded whelping box and it was stillborn. Mother Nature surely has a way of pointing out that you really can't top her, no matter how much science you bring to the table.
Roping my husband into action, we gathered shovels, flashlights, hotdogs and met my friend at the house, about 20 miles away. The homeowner is a tiny little lady with an immaculate home and an assortment of dogs, so the mama dog made a wise choice in that regard. Her location under the back deck, not so much. Last week we had about 18" of snow and it was a whopping 9 degrees this morning, though it did warm up to the 20s, it's still far too cold for newborn pups.
Walking was treacherous, snowbanks were high, daylight just about gone. There was a smidge of space cleared to get on my knees and peek under the deck, which was too low to get more than my arm & head under. Mama was just out of arm's reach, appeared to be a biggish husky/shepherd mix. She didn't growl or even acknowledge my presence, being very busy cleaning her puppies. I managed to snag a couple of the pups with a little toy leaf rake, which she'd do her darndest to grab back, and pass them out to the others waiting with towels, but it took some time and improvisation to finally get a lead to loop over mama's head and drag her out. Then the rest of the pups, except for one little adventurer that thought he needed to crawl further away and almost made it, I barely caught his tail in time. Their cords weren't dried up, so they weren't very old, and they certainly had lungs that worked.
Homeowner was willing to keep mom & pups in her house overnight til the shelter opens tomorrow and space is found there. I'm soaked from laying in the snow for nearly an hour and I know I can feel things crawling in my hair and down my neck (not really, it's too cold for anything to actually be moving, but still, I don't do creepy crawlies very well). As I have puppies of my own at home, we sprayed ourselves down with the bottle I keep in the van before we got in, then stripped on the deck at home and bolted straight in to the shower.
The stray mama with a likely dubious history of any kind of health care or proper diet managed to dig under a deck and whelp 7 variegated puppies in freezing temperatures in dirt and rocks. Last weekend, one of my Labs, despite progesterone timing, 1000 miles of travel to the stud, holistic diet, supplements, blood tests, xrays and pretty much 9 weeks of pampering, managed to whelp one puppy in her heated, padded whelping box and it was stillborn. Mother Nature surely has a way of pointing out that you really can't top her, no matter how much science you bring to the table.
