This is a story from a veterinarian in Rockbridge county who has rehabbed a few fawns from us (wildlife center) over the past two summers…unfortunately, no fawns for her this year because this group of critters is living in her deer area. Anyone interested in a super cute hound puppy? Or a super cute momma?
Dear Friends,
In case you thought our lives might have settled down some lately, meet this pitiful thing! I literally ‘ran across’ her on my daily jaunt with Lark up Big Mary’s creek in the National Forest miles above the Nature Camp in Vesuvius. Collarless (she’s now wearing an old one of Pip’s since she took a dim view of being pulled along by her scruff), starved and heavily pregnant, she was scavenging around a campsite. I just couldn’t leave her there to die. Far too pregnant to catch anything and already too weak to move fast, labor would have killed her if she lived that long.
David and I spent the next few days in a quandary. I spread the attached ‘Found’ poster around locally but didn’t really expect anyone to claim her. The local SPCA won’t take pregnant dogs (they say ‘the puppies always die’ ??!!) and the stress of sending her to their pregnant dog rescue in Maryland when she could whelp any second seemed like a poor chance for her. Meanwhile we fed her (she’s all about that!!), gave calcium supplements, heartworm tested her (she’s negative), de-wormed her, treated her for ticks and fleas, bathed her, vaccinated her and I took her to work to X-ray. 8 puppy skulls for sure and possibly two more though they weren’t easy to count over the rocks in her GT tract. (Not much food in the campground . . . ) I checked with some other rescues, all full of abandoned hounds, and eventually it became clear that her best chance was us. After all, we were already geared to rehab fawns this summer and I could argue that the needy thing in front of me is as important as the future needy fawns. So we gave her a temporary name: Big Mary.
More panic ensued when her temperature dropped a degree (usually means labor in 24 hours) an hour before I was due to leave for the weekend for an Ultrasound course in NC, but David said he could cope with the on-call aid of a vet friend of mine in C-Ville. Big Mary had no milk yet and was still quite debilitated, but at least had had decent groceries for a few days. Bless her, she waited until I got home late Sunday to begin nesting and was safely delivered of 10 (count 'em!) hound puppies between midnight and 10am Monday. Some born in a romping, stomping thunderstorm. Obviously a first-time mother, she howled and whinged with the first pains (I’d have thought her life had been miserable enough that labor wouldn’t have seemed so awful) and scrambled around the pen digging, but settled down after the first few were born. I’m thinking more frightened really since the only other sound from her I’ve heard has been whimpers when I first loaded her into the Trooper the day I found her. She also spurned the roomy nest we’d provided and stuck with the igloo she’d initially fallen in love with until she ran out of room; she then deposited the next 4 pups in last year’s fawn bed (hay) at the upper corner of the pen. David and I spent several hours Monday re-fitting the upper corner and re-uniting the split family.
She’s doing quite well now; seems to have the mother thing all figured out. She has remained in the new eyrie, save for food and potty breaks and is keeping her pups immaculate. She’s still a skeleton but, so far, has adequate milk. This could well change but, when I discussed with David the philosophy of allowing her to raise what she could (after all, fewer puppies to find home for, but not so easy to do . . . ) vs. stepping in and bottle-feeding if some become weak (time-consuming and saves creatures we have no home for), he declared he wasn’t deciding who would starve. Settles that question.
NOW we need homes for 11 hounds! Why does this sort of thing keep happening to us? David has one puppy possibility among the people he works with, but we have no others. Mary herself is slowly coming out of her shell and wanting head rubs even when we don’t bring food (to begin with, we weren’t too useful to her when we were empty-handed). She’s a young dog, quiet in the pen and fastidious in habits as far as we can tell. We’re working on “Come!” This is how she looks after 8 days of regular meals..
So please will everyone keep their ears open for good homes? We just can’t get in the habit of keeping every stray . . . too many things come through work, all deserving; we’d fast run out of room and be unable to help the next one. I’ll de-worm and give first vax to the puppies, and I’ll spay the mama . . . also, we’d welcome anyone who wants to come hug puppies. It’s good for their socialization and we promise not to sneak one in your vehicle ;-)
Please contact David "Doug" L. Somers in Fairfield Virginia at david@somers.com.
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