More puppies

Raven's puppies have opened their eyes. They look like puppies, now, instead of little woodchucks. They are standing up and toddling around on all fours, and attempting to wrestle with each other. The puppies began to cry a lot, and lost a few ounces; it seems Raven couldn't produce enough milk to support them. Foster mom Melanie tried to bottle feed them, but they didn't take the bottle well, so she put the formula down in a shallow pan. They dove in like pigeons on popcorn and lapped it all up. With regular supplementation to mama's milk, they have stopped crying so much and are back to gaining weight.

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It's been a rough couple of weeks for my rescue group. Several fosters "dumped" their foster dogs, which ended up at a boarding kennel since we are so full; a couple of adopters abandoned their dogs at the pound, and they also ended up at the boarding kennel. We had one dog at the kennel, and suddenly we have 10. Dog adoptions have been dismally slow. With no room in foster care, we haven't been able to pull a single dog from the pound. We get calls from the pound saying they have 22 dogs that need to go to rescue by tomorrow, do we have room? Two days later, another call with 8 dogs needing rescue, do we have room? The answer is always no, and it breaks our hearts.

Puppies!

If I'm counting right, we have 6 mama dogs with a total of 58 puppies in foster care right now. The puppies range in age from 2 weeks to 7 weeks. I don't think my rescue group has ever had this many mamas and nursing puppies at once before. Two of the mother dogs came into foster care hugely pregnant, and had their puppies within a week. The other four were all dumped at the pound with their tiny newborn puppies. All of them would have been euthanized if they hadn't gone to rescue.


The beautiful black lab in the last entry is Raven. She was brought to the pound when her puppies were only one day old. I have no idea who brought her or why she was abandoned. She was thin, but not emaciated like some of the nursing mothers we've rescued, and she was wearing a collar. But I believe she was not well socialized in her previous life, and is very fearful. When I tried to lead her out of the cage at the pound, she was so frightened, she tried to run back in. She only made it four or five steps away from the kennel before she dropped to her belly in terror and refused to move. I had to pick her up and carry her, and she defecated all the way through the receiving area and out to the van. She continued to do so in the van on her way to her foster home; the cage was covered with feces by the time we arrived, and so was she. Thankfully, her 9 tiny puppies were contained in a small pet carrier, and only the bottom of the carrier was soiled.


My step-sister Melanie and her husband Jim, her foster parents, took this turn of events in stride. Their calm, sympathetic reaction to a stressful and smelly situation was a true blessing. We cleaned up the van and washed poor Raven off with the hose out in the driveway. Again, she was too frightened to walk on the leash, and Jim had to pick her up and carry her into the house; she pooped while he carried her, too. It says a lot about this dog's temperament that she never once growled, snapped, or even looked like she might snap throughout this whole ordeal.


I am very fortunate to live in close proximity to Melanie and Jim, and I have been making frequent visits and taking lots of pictures! Raven greets me with enthusiastic tail wags, but if I reach out to pet her too quickly, she cowers and drops to the ground. Despite her fears, she has let numerous friends, relatives, and small children handle her puppies without a grumble. She immediately learned to use the dog door, and only elimiates outside. Not surprisingly, Melanie and Jim are falling in love, and are considering adopting her.