Last Sunday morning I was dropping down the west ridge of the San Felipe valley when I came across this dog and her puppies. She was tied to a tree, and had got so tangled up that she couldn't even sit down. She had produced five pups, but one was already dead. She had no food, no water, and very little shade. From her condition I would say she had been there 7-10 days, and had produced the pups there. The four surviving pups (2 male, 2 female) were in reasonable condition, and clearly she had fed them as long as she could.

I went home, then back up again with food and drink (and a camera), released the mother, and started to train the pups to lap milk. The mother had no milk left and was getting very impatient with her pups. The next day (Monday), the mother had disappeared, and I got all four pups lapping milk and (sort of) eating a little chicken meat. This morning (Tuesday) the mother was still absent, two of the pups had forgotten how to lap milk, but soon re-learnt it, and when I left them all had had milk and chicken.

Wednesday morning. Pups still OK at 07:15 am. Already showing great signs of improvement, and lapping milk very enthusiatically and eating reasonably. Someone else has found them and did a bit of re-organizing yesterday (Tuesday) - mixing the water with some of the kibble I left - probably a very good idea. Breakfast this morning was 3/4 liter of entera milk (entirely consumed) and some very finely chopped chicken and roast beef with vegetables and gravy. Eating was a little amateurish, so I left it with them. Still no sign of the mother dog - she's either walked out on them or gone off somewhere to die.

I will continue to feed them daily, but could anyone offer a home to one of these puppies? I could bring them down one (or possibly two) at a time. If you can help, please contact Ron by email, or leave a message at the Library.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

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