The snow saga

Clay told me Thursday evening that we were due for a big snow starting on Friday. I don't watch or read local news so I would have been completely clueless and unprepared without him. After delivering DJ up to Culpeper on Friday morning, I went into disaster preparedness mode for the rest of the day. I stopped at the Orange-Madison Co-op on the way back from Culpeper to buy medication for Rocky's neck and to look at tarps, with the idea of putting a huge tarp over the entire 10x20 puppy kennel and canopy. A woman I knew from a previous rescue effort was there; we chatted, I handed out cards, and may have a lead on a future adoption. The tarp idea didn't look feasible, so we moved on to Plan B. That involved a trip to the dump to empty the trash I had been storing in the back of the pickup, and that involved jump starting the pickup, and putting on new registration stickers because it hadn't been started or driven in months. After disposing of 3 months of household garbage, I stopped at Home Source in Fork Union for 4 sheets of T1-11 plywood and 10 bales of straw.

The snow started soon after I got home, but Clay came home early, thankfully, and we built a straw shelter of sorts in the puppy kennel to give them a protected play space outside the doghouse. The extra sheets of the T1-11 were used to block the north side of the kennel. A heated water bucket was installed, along with a wool blanket into the igloo doghouse, and a 10x10 tarp on the end of kennel to block wind and snow. The puppies thought all this activity was the most fun they had ever had.

We put two bales of fresh straw and more blankets in the big shed for the rotties and Hannibal. That shed is tight and quite cozy, especially the nest boxes, so I knew they would be fine. Clay hauled water out to them. The other shed, with Birdy, Copper, and Teddy, just needed some more blankets, and I pulled the rug down over the front of the crates to make a very protected den for them all. Rocky and Brody have been staying inside. The pups were snuggled into the igloo, which faces into an A-frame dog house, all of which was covered with heavy moving blankets so they had no exposure to the elements. Still, you worry about puppies and we had noticed the other day that one of them was a little thin, apparently not getting her fair share of the food.

It snowed, and snowed, and snowed. Clay woke up about 4:00 a.m. and went out the brush the snow off the canopy and to feed and check on the pups. They were fine, but the wind was howling and I knew we wouldn't get back to sleep worrying about them. So, we moved on to Plan C.

We suited up, went back outside in the dark, waded through the snow (well over a foot of it already, and drifting), and carried in 4 crates and the 7 puppies. They were all warm and were doing fine, but it was easier than worrying about them. The crates were stacked on top of the big crates in my office, which are occupied by Rocky, Brody, and Molly or Emmylou. The pups were happy and eventually settled down to sleep about the time it started getting light.

Still, this was a temporary solution at best, because the crates weren't big enough for the pups to have room to pee and poop. Plan D. I had a roll of flooring saved from the last time I had puppies living in the office. I cut it to fit, roughly, over the floor of the upstairs guest bathroom. We made a bed of blankets in the shower stall and the puppies immediately took advantage of the newspaper covered flooring to poop and pee. This seems like a workable situation for a few days. The pups pile in on top of each other in the shower stall but come out to do their business, mostly on the newspaper.

Hannibal came in to the other big crate in my office, giving us 9 indoor adult dogs, and 7 puppies. I'm glad we don't get snow like this often.