Moms and miracles

I don't believe in virgin births, but mothers do work miracles after giving birth. I'm talking about dog moms of course. I have very little experience with human mothers but evidence suggests that many of them fail miserably when it comes to raising decent human beings. I confine my comments to something I've had more experience with – dog moms. When we've had a mother with puppies I've always been amazed at how well the moms do even when coming from bad situations. Our role has always been to support the mother in caring for and raising her puppies. 

A pregnant or nursing mother in a shelter or rescue situation always pulls at the heartstrings because they are in a bad situation not of their own making and are forced to do the best they can under what are often terrible circumstances. I think it's particularly important then that the mothers get the best possible adoptive home after they've completed their maternal role for the last time. We want great homes for the puppies too, of course, but those aren't so hard to come by. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing one of our mother dogs end up in really spectacular adoptive homes. And so it has been with our three most recent litters.

Marvel is our most recent foster who came to us with a litter of newborn puppies, born in transit from the shelter she came from. She was a great mother to the pups and a great dog in her own right. I was very happy to see her wind up in a most wonderful home where she seems to be very much the center of attention and gets all the exercise, activity, and love that we would wish for any dog. Marvel is constantly smiling in all the post-adoption pictures I've seen of her and that tells me everything.

Here are two pictures of Marvel prior to adoption:

And two pictures of Marvel from her new home:

Padme was the mother of the litter of Doberman puppies we took in from a seizure handled by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). By the time they arrived here the puppies were ready to be weaned and the mother was actually adopted before any of the pups. I love when that happens. And I particularly loved it in this case because the adopter was someone I had known through the vet world for many years and was someone I love as a person and would have entrusted with any dog. HSUS ended up using Padme's story in an ad that showed the situation she came from as well as where she ended up.

Here's the HSUS video featuring Padme/Brynn and Traci (adopter): 

And here are two gorgeous pictures sent to me after the adoption:

And finally there is the story of Lux, now called Fiona, the mother of the Shar-pei pups who came from the same HSUS case that brought us Padme and the Doberman pups. Lux was a classic puppy mill dog, valued only for her breeding. She was completely neurotic, pacing back and forth in a distance defined by her prior living conditions even when she was here and had more room. She was fearful of humans, having never had much, if any, positive exposure or contact with decent humans. She was also beyond my ability to rehabilitate or "fix" her problems so she moved to another foster home. I don't have the calm patience required and we have too many dogs around here to give her the time and attention she needed. I just learned yesterday that she was being adopted by her foster home and I couldn't be happier.

Here is Lux when she first arrived:

And here's Fiona the house hippo now: