Sunday Snow With Lady

Writing with Lady is like having a 55-pound tumor on my right hip.

Lady looking for a home.

A female American "brown dog" and recovering first-time mom, Lady insists on sharing my ottoman seat at our south-facing window where we pass a quiet Sunday morning, watching snow softly blanket our drought brown front yard.

Lady is our first emergency rescue, a response to a post on Facebook. She and her five puppies had been found in a house several days after her human partner had died. I can imagine her instincts alerting her when her human died. Something was not right. Something possibly threatening. No doubt she remained fearful, particularly for her pups, when she heard strangers entering the home. She silently kept her brood close to her and, as a result, mom and pups were left behind, undiscovered.

Days passed without food or water for her. She continued to allow her babies to suckle, her body converting everything it could to milk, until she had nothing left to give. When she was found, her pups were fat and frisky. She, however, had wasted to a proverbial bag of bones.

A neighbor removed the dogs' from the home. She had dogs of her own, and six more mouths to feed was more than she could manage. The plea for help went out on Facebook, a FB friend put us in telephone contact with the rescuer, and we picked up Lady and her puppies the following morning.

Other caring folks stepped up as well. We brought the dogs home on a Sunday morning, and a volunteer with Texas Pit Crew (TPC) showed up that afternoon with a huge bag of puppy chow and a basket full of chew toys and treats. Before leaving, the volunteer had picked out the two pups she wanted to foster.

So it went. All the pups received a thorough check up and shots by Tuesday, again thanks to TPC. By the

following day all five pups had been placed with TPC fosters.

Meanwhile, mom was making a quick rebound on a steady, ample diet of puppy chow and no puppies nagging for a teat. She, too, had a visit with a vet for a complete series of shots, heartworm testing and prevention. The Lady even had her nails done.

But when it came to fosters for an adult dog, TPC was tapped out. Like virtually everywhere in this country, there simply are not enough fosters to meet the needs of all rescue dogs. Lady, it seems, is destined to remain with us until she can be placed in a permanent home.

That presents some sizable challenges in a house already possessed of a strongly temperamental, highly territorial boglen terrier and four cats!

But as of this writing, it's a snowy Sunday morning. The Lady and I are at our south windows, watching the large flakes drift down and spotting squirrels as they dart from tree to tree. It's all good.

 Fancy Update...

Fancy, our fifth foster, left us last Monday and arrived safely at Helping Hounds Dog Rescue in New York Friday evening. We expect to hear of her adoption into a permanent home any day now.