The day of seven dogs

So on the way home from our quick trip up North, we had to rely on the dogs to be patient due to both ridiculous post-Thanksgiving traffic and my intermediate pipe’s decision to fall apart into three pieces.  My husband managed to rig it with tie wire and as soon as we could get an appointment, it was off to the mechanic.

Saying that we are not morning people would be a severe understatement.  Bleary eyed after dropping the car off early in the morning, we spotted something moving as we crossed a bridge at the edge of the lake.  Did we just see puppies or were our eyes playing tricks?

We pulled over and my husband managed to nab one puppy, but the rest ran away.  There were four of them.  I stuck the puppy in the car while he ventured off after the rest, whistling from time to time which influenced the puppies to vocalize.

They had gone through brush, thorns, and woods at the edge of the lake and we had to fight our way through.  As my husband hunted down each puppy, I carried them back to the car to join the first pup.

We called the animal hospital, which had just opened for the day, as we finished gathering the pups.  They had just taken in several litters and were pretty full, but wanted us them over to at least be checked out.  Unfortunately, we didn’t end up doing this that same day because someone my husband knew was interested in adopting one and couldn’t make it over to see them right away.

Please excuse the floors… eight week old pups gathered from muddy lake edges are messy!

This meant there were four more dogs in our house in addition to the three we already had.  Seven dogs.  That’s five dogs more than I prefer to have in my tiny home.  Four of them eight weeks old and not yet to the point of being unwilling to mess where they sleep.

They would potty outside, then promptly potty inside too. Rusty and Nellie were so excited, they forgot they were housebroken.  Gambit pretty much wanted to be their new mama, just like when he had his kitten.

The most sheepish pup of the litter pretty much spent the day stuffed under the cabinets, with the rest piled on top of her.

My husband’s friend ended up adopting one of the puppies, who was the only male in the litter as well as being the only solid black pup.  It was a nice change of pace to the usual saying that solid black dogs are the last to be adopted.

The rest were whisked away to the animal hospital the next morning. Since the females were nearly identical, my husband gave them coordinating names based on their distinguishing features.

Eunice’s tan eyebrows came close together and were almost a uni-brow, although it doesn’t show too well here.

Dottie had one tiny black spot on each of her front paws.

Norma was a normal black and tan.

Two of the puppies ended up in the same forever home within just a day or two.  When we were at the animal hospital picking up heartworm preventatives for Rusty and Nellie less than a week after dropping off the puppies, a couple from North Carolina had driven down to look at the last puppy and adopted her.

Speedy adoption for the entire litter!

It seems like that happens so rarely.  Gambit, Rusty and Nellie were all among the last puppies left from their litters.  I’m guessing Gambit was the last of his litter, since he was eight weeks old at his intake date and there were no other puppies that remotely resembled him when we went to the shelter.

The biggest lesson I learned from finding a litter of puppies on the side of the road was that I’m definitely not ready to foster a litter yet.  As cute as eight week old puppies are, I’m much happier working with dogs four months and up!

Isn’t this the cutest Petfinder photo ever? No wonder they were adopted so quickly!