Puppy adoption day at Petco

Every Saturday and Sunday I  load up the dogs that I have and take them the 25 miles to civilization (The Mall) where they sit in cages (EXpens- short for exercise pens) for about 5 hours looking as cute as can be with the hope of adoption.  The puppies I have at this moment are all about 6 months old and are, therefore, by common standards, unadoptable.  People want cute cuddly puppies that lope about and pee all over the floor, and who can blame them?

A few months ago I had 42 puppies in various locations throughout the school.

These were in front of a small space heater in what used to be the girls shower room.

Anyway, eventually, the dogs contracted a horrible stomach virus that mimicked Parvo, and then eventually 6 came down with Parvo and 3 died.  When this hit I had to get rid of as many dogs that had not yet been affected as possible.  I was left with 12. 3 died.  My rescue foster home was put into quarantine and no dogs could leave.  We did manage to have some enter by closing off the old lawn mower shed that we were using as a goat pen.

So the dogs that remained got bigger and bigger. Some, by some miracle, got adopted as soon as I came off of quarantine, but 7 remain and they are all 6 months old or so.

I went on vacation, came home cleaned up the gym with bleach and am working on resealing the cement, but I just found out last night that I must first scrape off the asphalt cement that was holding the tiles down.  Now that they have soaked in bleach water for so many days for so many hours the cement is soft enough to scrape off. So I only have to do that 6,000 times to get the adhesive off of each square that did hold a tile.  soooooooooooooooooooooooo
in the meantime I can only foster dogs that are over 4 months old.

Today I took my foster puppies to Petco, but none of them got adopted, and I was able to bring home 3 more.  Two came directly from the Walker County Humane Society. They are terrier mixes. One came from another foster who is getting ready to sell her house.

In addition to these puppies last night I was able to bring home a mom and 8   2 week old puppies.  They are in one of the rooms we had prepared for rental that was never used. So that is a safe room, and the puppies are protected from Parvo because they draw their immunity from the mother's milk.

Total Dog Count: 18 foster 4 domestic 1 day care= 23 dogs

The weather is warm and beautiful with no rain forecasted for 3 days.  The dogs are enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and the freedom of the 5 acres they roam during the day.  At night they sleep in the living room and pee in the hallway when they can't figure out how to get out of the OPEN door.  Mop water and bleach before anyone else wakes up.

Next Sunday I drive north of Nashville to deliver 15 dogs to a large rescue from the New York area, but I just found out that none of mine will be able to go because they all weigh more than 20 pounds.  I guess they will be at my home for quite a while.  A positive note is that a guy called from South Carolina about Max, the goofy hound puppy and he will meet me in Chattanooga on Friday to see if they are a good fit for eachother.  Let's hope that works out.
You can see max at http://apawandaprayer.com/