Imagine being tiny and defenseless and being tossed out like trash on the road where the only shelter you had was the thicket of wild brush poking at your tender pink skin. That was the reality of five helpless puppies and their emaciated mother who were recently abandoned in OK in a wooded area off a busy highway. Any of them could have easily been hit and killed by oncoming traffic or worse they could have been left in the harsh environment and with the recent storms drowned in flood waters or been eaten by wild coyotes scavenging for their next meal.
Sadly this would make the third litter for the month that was abandoned in the county – one litter by the lake, another in the parking lot of a church in the pouring rain and this one in a wooded area off the highway. And that’s just the ones that we know about. Who knows how many more are taken off and never seen again?
This is what abandonment in Oklahoma looks like. It’s the stupidity of the sick society we now live in. These owners don’t care if their animals are starving, left in the elements or found dead on the side of the road. These owners refuse to take responsibility and get their animals spayed or neutered so litter after litter of unwanted puppies and kittens are born into a cruel world where a mama dog or cat practically starve to death because the litter robs their body of all the nutrients they need to live off of as they try their best to feed their growing babies even though there isn’t enough food for even one now. The other harsh reality is many of her young would have starved to death, been eaten up with intestinal worms, were infested with ticks that were sucking the life out of them or often mange eats them alive, just because they never received the proper care when born.
Luckily one small pup wandered to the road but wasn’t hit by a passerby. When the two young ladies weren’t sure of what they had just seen, they circled back and found the five pups and the emaciated mama dog trying to care for her whimpering babies that were cold and wet but at least alive. This sweet mama was so timid and gentle but literally was starving to death to keep her puppies alive. They quickly ran back to their vehicle and gave the mama dog some water from a water bottle they had and a couple peanut butter crackers that were left in the back seat from their younger sibling. After calling several places to try and get some help, they went to social media with their dilemma that there was no agency that would take her or the pups and all the shelters in the area were full to capacity and beyond. Realizing these babies would not make it if left here these “Good Samaritans” did the only thing they could do with a right conscience; they loaded them all up in their car and posted them. Of course my daughter saw them and called me immediately asking how we could help.
That’s how Paws N Claws got involved. First it was just getting them some dogfood and some milk replacer. The mama needed these babies to start eating on their own even though they were only about four weeks old. I told the girls they could soften up the dogfood with the goat’s milk (which was better for them than other milk replacers).
The mama seemed happy to get a short reprieve though the pups would return to her and still want to nurse. Because these young ladies were in apartments they knew they couldn’t keep the mama and the pups. That’s when I had to make the decision to take on a few pups that were going to need attention around the clock even though I work around the clock with my job, often working early morning and doing late meetings or taking pictures wherever I’m needed as a reporter.
Luckily my daughter could help tend to them during the day and I could tend to them the rest of the night. They were little but there were a lot of them. So cleaning up two crates of pooping puppies wasn’t ideal. So I started opening the crate door and getting my big dogs to go outside and then I made the puppies go outside with them in the back, fenced-in yard. At first I had to grab an armful of pups to just get them to the porch before they were squatting and peeing on the porch. But eventually they started learning the pattern that each time I opened the gate they were to go straight outside and go potty. Amazingly after only a few days they caught on and would even cry if they woke up and needed to go outside to go potty. These little ones weren’t even five weeks old and were already showing me just how smart they were. They all went from 2-4 pounds to 8-12 pounds when they were ready to be driven to another rescue in another state that doesn’t have the overpopulation of pets like Oklahoma does. Of course by this time it was extremely hard to part with them. They were socializing well with all my big rescue dogs and they were learning to leave the cats alone (especially the feral kitties that I feed daily.) They would go out and have play time for about an hour then they would come back to the porch and even started to get inside the cat studio to sleep. So I put a blanket in there for them to lay on and they loved it.
The day finally came that I had to let them go so I could continue to rescue others. Oh how I wanted to keep one or two. I still miss them terribly but I can’t even imagine what their fate would have been if we all hadn’t intervened. It truly takes a village to rescue. I am thankful for the girls who picked them up, even though they weren’t sure what they were going to do next. I’m thankful to the people who donated to our Paws N Claws because these puppies cost several hundreds of dollars to buy them puppy food, milk replacer, training treats, wormer, shots and more. And yes, all of them were neutered and spayed before they could even be transported because that’s what it takes to save just one litter of unwanted pups. Yes, that’s what it takes to make sure the abandoned in OK get a fighting chance. So what are you doing to make a difference in your community? Remember it takes a village and I’m so grateful for ours.
