November 27, 2020

Digging had to be lightning fast, but gentle.

A mother dog was completely stuck in sand that had collapsed in a construction site. Right away we found one puppy alive and safe; we knew there would be more, but how deep? We could only remove the sand handful by handful to avoid injuring the mama dog’s body and any babies who, by a miracle, might be somehow still able to breathe inside the rubble. Sadly, not all the puppies survived, but one little fighter was still alive in the dark depths of suffocation. We could hardly believe our eyes when the sandy mound began to wiggle. We whisked him out and placed the two babies and their exhausted mama in a kennel in our ambulance to let them rest. Then we searched for a safe new spot to make a home. We laid out blankets of burlap and when we brought the relieved threesome, this mother seemed to tell us this was “just right.” We returned a week later to find that thanks to the food provided by their neighbor every night when he returned from work, they were thriving. When you can’t save them all, save one (or two!)