My life stopped for puppies...

No blogs.  No sleep.  Not enough eating.  No relaxation.  Just puppies.  Feeding, butt-wiping, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  Oh, and don't forget the heaping dose of stress.

Wow.  This is the first time in what feels like ages that I've been relaxed enough to sit down and have a thought in print.  A cohesive thought in print that was more than 420 characters.  It feels gooood.  😁

So yeah.  October 7th was the day that my life got crazy.  I was at work minding my business and you know, working, when I got a phone call from an ex's uncle saying that he had an emergency.  This stray dog had been run over and killed and her week-old puppies (4 of them) were out behind his house.  Cold and hungry.  He'd been trying to feed them cows milk from a rubber glove with no success and he was scared that they would die.  Apparently, since I have "SUCKER" stamped on my forehead I was the one he chose to call.

Needless to say I went and got them having no other plan than to keep them alive.  I hadn't a clue what I was doing so I searched the internet for help.  I wonder how many lives Google has saved?  Anyway, the first order of business was to keep them warm, and second - get some nutrition into the poor things.

I prepared a box with towels and a heating lamp over it - easy enough.  But at the time all I had was crappy little pet bottles that only served to frustrate and strangle the little guys.  I felt certain that I would have them aspirate and die on me if not starve.  😭  Off to Wal-Mart I went for human baby bottles (I'd read that those little pet nursers were only really good for small pets and toy babies and that human bottles worked better for larger breeds - which these babies definitely were).  I chose the newborn flow nipples and the bag kind of bottles and that actually worked WONDERS.  I like the bag bottles because they mimic a real breast and because you could squeeze the air out and lay them flat down and the pups could nurse while lying on their tummies - like they should.  With the human bottles it wasn't hard to get the hang of feeding them.  It came pretty natural to me and the puppies, actually.  THANK GOODNESS.

This is them at about two weeks old - fat, healthy, and sleeping well.

However, they had to eat every two hours so that meant I had to find something to do with them while I worked.  I had a puppy-sitter for the first day, but that wasn't a viable solution for every day.  I'd hoped to find a volunteer who could take them off my hands, but no one was stupid enough to do that.  I guess that everyone except me knew what I'd just gotten into.  Anyway, they ended up going to work with me.  I had no other choice.  Luckily, my coworker Susan coordinated her breaks with mine and we were able to feed and potty them in a reasonable amount of time several times a day.  They pretty much slept all day so they weren't usually much trouble.

After a couple of weeks of that I needed much larger bottles because their appetites were HUGE.  Shaun made a cool thing for me so that I could fill 4 large bottles and snap them in place in a plastic box with holes for the nipples to stick out.  Then I just lined the pups up in front of it and they'd feed themselves.  By this time they were opening their eyes and exploring and making huge messes in their box / carrier.  I had to start leaving them home.  I would feed them every morning and clean up, then re-fill the bottles for later, come home and clean up and fill the bottles yet again, repeat the process a couple of times before bed, and usually twice at night.

My awesome thing that Shaun made.

I made one first out of a shoebox, but it didn't last long.

This was much better.

I just want to pause here and point out two things - 1)  Puppy formula costs $20 for a can and they were going through a can about every other day at first.  It became daily later on.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm barely making ends meet as it is so this was a huge strain.  It came to the point where I was begging on Facebook for people to donate milk to the cause because it was pay my mortgage or feed the dogs.  And #2)  When I say "clean up" - it wasn't a quick thing.  They would poop and walk in it and go everywhere.  They would knock down my make-shift pens and I would end up having to clean poop off the walls and from under my bed.  I had no good place to put these guys, but I was stuck.  It was do this or turn them over to the shelter.  But by this time they were MY BABIES (nothing brings out the mother in you like nursing and wiping ass), and I was going to do what I had to for them.  Because apparently I am crazy.

At about 4 weeks I started trying to feed them wet puppy food because by this time I DESPERATELY needed for them to let me sleep more at night.  So in the evenings I would wet some food and let it sit for a while.  Then I would put them all in the bathtub with the food and let them go at it.  They fell in it got it in their noses and ears - EVERYWHERE.  So then I had to bathe them all just like a human child.  Then I took them back to my room topped them all off with bottles and went to sleep.  I guess I was getting about 5 or 6 hours of sleep straight rather than being woken up every two or three.  That was improvement, but I was still a walking zombie and still late for work every single day.  Y'all - my boss is freaking amazing.  😀

Anyway, now that they were starting to eat I really needed to figure out what to do with them because keeping them was NOT an option (I had my 4 dogs and 5 grown fosters in my house - for a total of 13 dogs under my roof at this point).  I'd originally had them in Hope's Rescue, but that turned out to be a long, drawn out, time-wasting bad thing that ended up getting me fired from volunteering with the shelter altogether.  It is another post entirely for another night.

So fast-forward to my pups being 12 weeks old and still no homes in sight.  They were huge and friendly and loved to be hugged and kissed on the cheek.  They were living with my grown dogs at this point so were a bit less trouble, but lets not forget:  they were still puppies.  Not completely house-trained so my house smelled terrible and there was always a lot of cleaning for me to do and of course I'd find the most random things chewed up.  But they were not in my bedroom waking me up at all hours so I was feeling better, though still quite overwhelmed and stressed.

I sent an email to a wonderful animal friend of mine and she hooked me up with an organization up north named Peace and Paws.  While I'd been a little worried about sending my fur-children so far away I can honestly say that it was the best decision I could have made for them.  There are so few good homes down south because we are overwhelmed with animals as it is.  But up north where they have laws and animal rights DO exist there were people who WANTED my babies and who were looking for dogs just like them to make a part of their families.  Just wow.

So I spoke with Melissa of Peace and Paws and she filled me in on how things work.  She screens the applicants extensively.  Once she approves of them she gives them my information and then I get to speak with them.  They ask about the dog and I get to feel them out and see if I think they would be a good match or a suitable adopter.  Once I give the ok things can move forward.  After the adoption I am allowed to check in and make sure things are going ok.  What is not to love about that?  So of course I was up for her posting my puppies.

Less than a week in I get an inquiry on Lester.  A couple of weeks later someone wants Brownie.  Another week goes by and Chester and Cupcake have homes.  It all happened so fast once they were posted, but in reality I NEEDED for that to happen.  My stress levels were through the roof, I was running out of money trying to feed so many, I was SO SICK of cleaning up after them, and just going into the dog room to give them food and water was a huge chore.  You try wading through 13 dogs who are SO HAPPY to see you and puppies that weigh 40 lbs playing tug-of-war with your pants and see how much you get done.  I was just burning out fast.  I couldn't have kept that up for much longer.

Sometimes I do really miss them... I especially miss hugging and kissing them and watching them play and sleep all piled up together.  But I don't see how things could have turned out any better for them.  They are all part of wonderful, loving families now.  It really makes my day to come home to an email with a sweet picture of them or get a phone call with an update.  Below are the pictures of them straight off of transport (all at 4 months old or less - they were BIG babies!), directly into the arms of their best friends.

This is Lester (now Banjo), who now calls New Hampshire home with a sister pup named Maisy and a cat friend named Jasper.

This is Brownie, who now calls Rhode Island home.  She's got 3 kids to love and a nice fenced-in yard to play in.

This is Chester (now Bowski) with his new best friend in Maine.

And this little girl is Cupcake who lives in Massachusetts with her brother Hardy, (another dog who was rescued from Alabama.)

❤❤❤