Down to the Wire with These Puppies

We are getting down to the wire with these puppies, matching them with adopters, microchipping (tomorrow!), and I just slogged through the multi-day Safeguard deworming protocol (none of us enjoyed it). They’ll get their second set of vaccines and be ready to go home as early as December 30^th.

Every day I grow more convinced that they are hound dogs. As a foster, I try very hard to dodge fostering hound dog puppies. Not because they aren’t cute, oh my gosh, they are. And not because they aren’t fun or sweet or snuggly – they’ve got that in spades. But because they are messy.

This litter, like the handful of other hound litters I’ve fostered, have no qualms about poop. Most of them poop whenever, wherever they want. Some of them do make the effort to use the puppy pads, but mostly they run/play/lounge on those puppy pads, and then use their paws to paint the pen in poop. I’ve had to shrink the size of their space, partly to contain the disaster, but also so I can have a separate space that is clean for them to eat (while I completely strip their other pen and scrub the floor).

Suffice it to say, I’m doing a lot of laundry and getting a lot of exercise.

Is it worth it?

Totally. Don’t feel sorry for me because I welcome these opportunities to give these little souls their very best chance at the lives they deserve.

That said, we’re taking a puppy break after this bunch goes home, but we’ll get back at it in the spring. Since I’m the only one in this household who is willing to do the work required to save puppy lives, I have to time my litters around my travel for Who Will Let the Dogs Out and our family adventures (in February we’re going to California to visit my son Ian and lots of other family).

The other day I was at the vet with one of my dogs, and met a five-month-old puppy in the lobby who looked a lot like the puppies in my puppy room all grown up. I asked the owner what breed she was and, you guessed it, she was a Plotthound.

Mama Krimpet will go for Heartworm treatment next week. The treatment is painful, risky, and expensive. (Thankfully, my fundraiser two months ago raised nearly enough to cover the treatment, so THANK YOU to everyone who donated!) Let this be a reminder (or an imperative) to give your dog their monthly heartworm preventative. While the preventatives may feel expensive to you, they cost MUCH less than the minimum $1200 HSSC will spend to treat Krimpet’s heartworm and the risk to her life the heartworms and their treatment present.

And for anyone thinking heartworm isn’t something we deal with ‘up here’, Krimpet contracted heartworm just twenty minutes away from my house. Heartworm is a real and present danger.

I’ll tell you more about the treatment process next week. Meanwhile, here are the stats on these super cuties, and my attempt at a holiday picture. Sadly, I had no professional photographer handy, so I did the best I could. Each of these pictures is the result of at least twenty or thirty other attempts! Here is a video of me trying to get Nutty Buddy to cooperate for a picture.

Honey Bun has an approved adopter. She’s weighing in as the biggest pup at nine pounds this week. She is still the boss of the other puppies and quite vocal about her needs. She is the only puppy who has managed to destroy her collar, so she is now sporting gray (if you’re watching the daily videos on Facebook you know until now she was wearing pink). She is most content being snuggled. In fact, I’d say she’s the queen of snuggling. She’s also very smart. Her adopter will need to have a plan for training.

Suzie Q also has an approved adopter. She remains one of the smaller puppies, and probably one of the mellowest. She is good at entertaining herself, is quiet, and mostly wants to be nearby. This week she fell asleep on the top of a visitor’s feet. The white on her nose is growing, along with her, and she is a darling pup. One of the easiest in this bunch (and a decent shot at the puppy pads!)

Twinkie has an approved adopter (thank goodness!). He is my wild man, throwing himself into the fray, and bounding around the pen. He’s the thinnest puppy, so he seems more gangly – all big feet and angles. Those big feet might seem big because he’s got six toes (double dew claws) on them. I’ve tried feeding him separately to get more nutrients into him, but he won’t eat by himself and just whines to join the others. I do fill him up with treats, but he doesn’t hold still long for those either. His big personality seems to burn through whatever I put in him. His super long ears and wrinkly face continue to make him the ‘houndiest’ puppy in this pack.

Ring Ding is meeting his approved adopters tomorrow, so it’s not a done deal. If one of the other available puppies can steal their hearts, they may switch. I don’t know why they’d want to, though, as he is a really good puppy. He’s the only puppy that doesn’t chew my hand when I pet him. He quickly learned to sit for pets. He loves to play with toys – pouncing on anything that moves or anything new that drops into the pen. Ring Ding is an even-tempered guy, and beautiful to boot.

Nutty Buddy, aka, Chubby Buddy, loves food. He has the big buddha belly to prove it. I know food-loving is a hound dog trait, but he takes it to a new level. If a piece of kibble bounces out of the pen during the feeding melee, after the meal is over, he will whine, scratch, and push at the fence, eventually just lying down and watching it, while the rest of the puppies settle in for nap time. He’s a smart guy who also understand sit for pets. Tug is a new concept we’ve been trying out and Nutty Buddy is one of the best at it.

But the real champion at sit-for-pets is Moon Pie. He will sit calmly while all manner of chaos goes on around him as the other puppies compete for my attention. Even if I don’t respond immediately with attention, he’ll wait. He is the smallest puppy and probably the calmest. Whenever I’m in the pen, his sweet eyes are on me. He seems a little wiser than the rest. And, oh my goodness, is he a cutie pie. He spends too much time in my arms.

And then there’s Kandykake. He’s such a good boy. I call him the middle-of-the-pack pup because he’s in the middle weight-wise and in terms of energy level. I remember when we were picking out a puppy the first time. I’d asked advice from a neighbor who bred dogs. She said, pick the middle of the pack pup – it won’t be as needy or bossy as the others. He’ll make a good family dog, she advised. Kandykake is good about deworming, good about sitting for pets, good about playing by himself (but willing to wrestle with his siblings too). He’s the middle of the pack pup, often overlooked because he’s just that. But I know he’ll be a good dog.

If you, or someone you know, is interested in adopting one of these puppies (only boy puppies left), you can get more information at the Humane Society of Shenandoah County or apply here.

To see daily live videos of the puppies, visit the Another Good Dog Facebook group.

Until Each One Has a Home,

Cara

For information on me, my writing, and books, visit CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like regular updates of all our foster dogs past and present, plus occasional dog care/training tips, and occasional foster cat updates (!) be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog.

And if you’d like to know where all these dogs come from and how you can help solve the crisis of too many unwanted dogs in our shelters, visit WhoWillLetTheDogsOut.org and subscribe to our blog where we share stories of our travels to shelters, rescues, and dog pounds.

If you can’t get enough foster dog stories, check out my book: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs . Or its follow up that takes you to the shelters in the south One Hundred Dogs & Counting: One Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey Into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues.

I love to hear from readers and dog-hearted people! Email me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

If you’d like to support the fostering work we do (and save the rescue and me some money), shop our Amazon wishlist. I’m in desperate need of a real puppy scale.