I was in the kitchen, cutting a pineapple, and my ‘post-partum’ foster started giving birth in her crate
I recently signed up to volunteer for the Denver Animal Shelter. Last Friday, I picked up my very first foster, a post-partum black lab that came in as a stray, so not much background. She needed a week to allow her teats to dry up before her spay. Perfect opportunity to test the waters.
Imagine my surprise when, on Sunday night, I'm cutting up a pineapple, and I hear Ziva (she needed a name!) aggressively licking something in her crate. It was a puppy! A very plump a wiggly puppy.
I called my PIC and asked him if I should contact the vet on call since it was after hours and he said, “Yeah, they'll probably want to know.”
Courtney, the rockstar that she is, not only talked me through it, but she also snapped me out of my anxiety with clear and direct instructions. Coincidentally, she was scheduled on-site at 8am on Monday. She said to bring Ziva and her 4 puppies in first thing. We put hand warmers under a towel in a box, packed up the puppies, and it was a short 20-minute drive to the shelter. We arrived at 8:06am.
My husband and I talked about our limitations, and puppies are outside of those limits. I did, however, request that the team keep me updated. They went into another foster home yesterday afternoon!
Shoutout to the entire team at Denver Animal Protection and the Shelter. Not all superheroes should wear capes, considering the line of work, but you all deserve one!
I went home, ate my pineapple, and then took a nap. I'd do it all over again! Onto the next. Thanks for reading.