I received a call one day from a woman in KCK. She said that there was a momma dog with 2 puppies and they were living under the shed in her neighbor’s back yard. We don’t normally go to KCK, but this woman named Rosa had called everywhere and no one said they could help her. I got the address and headed over. Rosa took me across the street from her house and showed me where this little family was living. We saw the momma dog. She was a reddish, mixed breed dog, about 45 lbs. Rosa told me that she had never been able to get close to either the momma or the puppies. I saw one puppy that day as it scurried under the shed. There was a nasty deer leg laying near the shed with flies all over it. I put some canned food down by the shed and told Rosa I’d be back the next day with some supplies and more help.
The next day, Judy, Karen and I met over there. We took a couple of our traps, a net, a crate and hot dogs. We saw the puppies run under the shed when we entered the back yard. We didn’t see momma. We started with the smelly food, trying to lure the puppies out. That wasn’t really working. They were very unsocialized, of course. After we’d been there for awhile, momma showed up, although she kept her distance. She was hanging out in the back yard next door to the shed. It was an abandoned house. We took the large trap and set it up in that yard. We set the smaller trap near the shed for the puppies. We baited the traps and retreated to the van. It wasn’t long until we heard the familiar noise of the trap slamming shut. She had to be in there! We ran over behind the abandoned house and there was momma in the trap! We had been there working on this situation for about 1 1/2 hrs., so we were thrilled. Now with momma in the trap, we could more easily get the babies.
Momma was very agitated and upset. The moms are difficult to work with because they are so protective of their babies-which they should be. She started flipping out, which they sometimes do in the trap. However, she began slamming herself against the sides of the trap and pushing and clawing at one of the front corners of the trap and all of the sudden, it broke and momma shot off! Oh no! We were devastated. This had never happened to us before and we were heart broken. We thought we finally had her and now she was gone.
We knew momma would not come near that trap again, so we turned our attention to the puppies under the shed. The clearance under the shed was maybe 6 inches. The puppies were smack dab in the middle where we couldn’t reach. We found some really long branches and started trying to poke the babies out from under there. We worked on them for a long, long time, but to no avail.
Finally, after being there for over 3 hours, we decided to call it a day and regroup for another time. We had upset all of them and knew they needed to settle back down. This back yard was secluded, so we were able to leave our traps, net and crate there. We tripped the traps until we could come back. We didn’t want to catch a cat or raccoon or something in there. Also, Rosa worked 2pm-10pm, so no one would be able to hear the puppies and help them if they got in there. We finally left. This was on a Thursday.
On Saturday, I received a message from Rosa. She said she had caught the puppies and they were in her back yard! She had already had to leave for work. I called her back and asked her how in the world she had caught them. We hadn’t shown her how to work the traps or anything. She told me that she just went over there and sat on the ground by the shed Saturday morning and she decided she was going to figure out how the traps worked. She did and she set them and she caught both puppies in the same trap at the same time!
It was raining and she said she had put them in her back yard. We headed over to get them, worried that they were in that trap for all of these hours in the rain. We got over there and went into Rosa’s back yard and there were the puppies! Rosa had even transferred the puppies from the trap into the crate and had put a blanket over it to give them some kind of protection from the weather, but they were soaking wet when we got there.
These poor little ones were so scared-you can see it on their faces. We loaded them up and took them back to Chain of Hope. I don’t believe they had ever been touched by human hands ever. We fed and watered them and put them in a nice big crate with lots of blankets and covered them up and let them be. This was the beginning of their new life.
We didn’t even try and touch them for many, many days. We just kept them clean and fed and let them figure things out. We could leave the crate door open and they didn’t even try to come out. They were traumatized for sure, but things would be ok.
As the days went on, the white and brown one began running out of the crate when we’d open it and she’d go sit under the table. Eventually, the other puppy began coming out, too. We went very slowly with them. We got them de-wormed.
Time went on and eventually we could handle them enough to get them into the bath tub-they were 2 stinky puppies! We vaccinated them and kept working with them everyday. They discovered they liked raw hides to chew on!
Two of our wonderful volunteers, Mark and Teri, decided to foster these two girls and took them home. It was very slow going at first, but June (the white and brown puppy) and Esther (the reddish brown puppy) started slowly coming along. Just to get them to sit on their laps took some work, but it was nothing that a little squirt cheese couldn’t fix!
They are two of the most beautiful puppies we’ve ever seen!
June and Esther are finally happy! They are connecting with their foster parents, venturing out a little more and gain a little more confidence everyday. We still talk with Rosa and she is still working on the momma. She has set the trap a lot, but momma is most likely never going to go in there because of her previous experience. Rosa is trying to take her time and befriend momma with food and patience. Rosa is a total rock star, though, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to get a call one day that she had momma in her back yard!
In the meantime, June and Esther are up for adoption. They need a non-chaotic home to continue to blossom and we are only adopting them out locally. Look at their faces in the most recent picture I received from their foster parents. They are happy and adjusting and doing great! I am so happy that we responded to this call-it changed two little lives forever!
