Sundays are my antisocial days. I’m usually tired from the previous work week followed by the weekly adoption event on Saturdays, so I tend to spend my Sundays at home. I don’t check e-mails or answer phone calls, or do anything that requires me to talk to another person. A few weeks ago, on a Sunday, there was a knock at my front door. I checked out the window and saw a strange car with a small white dog inside. Since I live in the middle of nowhere and the only people who ever knock on my door are there to ask for something, I figured the people in the car were there to ask me to take their dog. Being the antisocial person that I am, and knowing that I already had a houseful of dogs with no room for another, I decided that instead of just opening the door and telling them I couldn’t help, I would take the coward’s way out and pretend I wasn’t home. I was relieved when after knocking once, they immediately walked back to the car, got in with the small white dog, and drove away.
It was probably twenty minutes later when I decided to go check the front door and see if they left a note. In a county with no animal control, the word gets around quickly when an animal rescuer moves into an area. I often get notes on my door with people’s phone numbers asking me to call them to see if I can help with unwanted pets. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was a note taped to the door. I figured I would read the note and call the people back the next day to let them know I couldn’t help and to suggest some other rescue groups and shelters they could contact. But as I began reading, I realized that wasn’t going to happen – because the note started off by apologizing for leaving a dog tied to my front porch.
I looked around wildly – no dog. I ran down the steps and looked around the corner. There I saw a medium sized tan and black dog with a shoelace tied to her collar. She growled and barked at me, and backed up as far as she could while still being tied to the porch. She was terrified, so I sat down on the steps and waited. While I waited, I finished reading the note (actually a two page letter, written before they ever came over). The writer said that she was recently homeless and couldn’t take her dog to the friend’s house where she was staying. I wondered if they let her take the small white dog, or if that was her friend’s dog. I also wondered how they could just leave this shy, scared girl with no one around to help her. I learned that the dog’s name was Bella and she was a nine-month-old Shepherd/Lab mix. I talked softly to Bella and within a few minutes was able to approach her and pet her. She then followed me into the house, and while she explored, I began making phone calls to find her a place to go.
Within an hour, Bella had a place reserved at a shelter in the next county, and I found a volunteer to drive her there when they opened again on Tuesday. But I knew from the moment I met her that Bella would not do well in a shelter environment. She was scared and would likely nip someone out of fear, or at least scare off any potential adopters with her fear barking. A noisy, chaotic place like an animal shelter was not something she would be able to deal with. Still, it took a few hours before my heart overruled my head and I convinced myself that I could foster her. I found another volunteer to keep her over the Thanksgiving holiday, and decided that along with her new life, Bella needed a new name. The rescue group I volunteer with already had one Bella available for adoption, so I posted Bella’s story on Facebook and quickly received several great suggestions for names. In the end, because of the shoelace she came with, Lacey became the perfect name for her.
Three days later Lacey went to the vet, and I shared my concerns with the vet that Lacey could be pregnant. I’m admittedly not any sort of an expert on pregnant dogs, and come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve seen any pregnant dogs before. But Lacey just looked not quite normal, almost like she’d had a litter of pups in the past, and if she really was only nine months old, that meant to me that there was a chance she hadn’t had pups yet but her body was preparing for pups. It was a relief to find out that the vet didn’t think she was pregnant, although she said she could have already had a litter of pups since dogs can get pregnant as young as six months old. So we made an appointment for her spay surgery and then I took her back home.
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| Lacey the not-pregnant dog |
Lacey quickly fit in at my house, following me around everywhere and having perfect manners. Her only issue was some slight food aggression, and she seemed to always be hungry. She went to another foster home for five days while I went out of town, and when I picked her up, she looked like she had been eating very well. Three days later, it was time for her spay surgery. We walked into the vet’s office and Lacy stepped on the scale. The vet tech said “She’s 46 pounds… wait, that can’t be right. She was only 40 pounds when she was here two weeks ago.” I said, “Oh, I think 46 pounds is right. She’s become quite round over the past two weeks.” Can you guess? Sure enough, this time x-rays showed four or five puppies growing quickly.
Our main priority was to do the right thing for Lacey. Having puppies at nine months old is very hard on a dog, since they’re still growing themselves. But at this point the vet felt it would be harder on Lacey to spay her than it would to let her have the puppies. So now I can not only check off “Finding a dog tied to my front porch” from my “Things to Accomplish Before I Die” list, but I can also check off “Fostering a pregnant dog or cat”. Fortunately for Lacey, she won’t be stuck with me long, since she’ll get to go to a neonate specialty foster home in another week or two. And in about three weeks, the puppies should be born!
