My Foster Dogs

This is Hope and her seven male pups. She was pulled out the 'E' list at the MDAS, not sure what the E list is exactly, but she didn't have much time. I believe if she came in pregnant, that pregnant dogs are euthanized at the shelter. MDAS is a very high kill shelter in S.FL.

If you know anyone looking to adopt in the S. FL area and are interested in Hope or her pups please do it through saveadeathrowdog.org as they were the ones who rescued Hope and her pups. Hope is very sweet, housetrained, has nice leash manners, calm, doesn't bark, and would snuggle and watch movies with you all day. The puppies are two weeks old and will be put up for adoption along with Hope in 6 weeks. I'll update in pictures as they grow up.


Look how thin she is! Any breed guesses? She's about 25lbs-20lbs, up to my knee in height, so I'll say around the size of a cocker spaniel I think?
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Lets see if I can do this without the help of google...Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, and uhh going to cheat on this one, Happy!
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First pup to open his eyes today.
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Adorable and thank you for fostering! I would say she is Beagle/Lab. :) Such a pretty girl. :love: I would feed her some satin balls and don't forget to feed her puppy food as well as those pups will take a lot out of her and she needs extra calories. I would also have puppy milk on hand incase she stops lactating. Are you working with a rescue? I would have them help out with puppy milk, but do NOT get Hartz.

Good for you for fostering Candy! :) Hope and her puppies are adorable.:love: I hope they find great forever homes.

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Originally Posted by luvofallhorses

Adorable and thank you for fostering! I would say she is Beagle/Lab. :) Such a pretty girl. :love: I would feed her some satin balls and don't forget to feed her puppy food as well as those pups will take a lot out of her and she needs extra calories. I would also have puppy milk on hand incase she stops lactating. Are you working with a rescue? I would have them help out with puppy milk, but do NOT get Hartz.

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Thanks for the advice! She's been real finicky about eating too.

Oh turns out E list means euthanasia list.

No problem! :) I expect more pics as they are growing.. they probably sleep right now a lot. :p

Bless you for taking in Hope and her babies! They are among the few lucky ones.

I only learned about MDAS from FB. They receive in 100 dogs PER DAY! And euthanize as many as they just don't have space. It is very sad. (I don't have info on cats, but it is equally bad.)

Sadly, many rescue groups, like the one I am with, are banned from pulling dogs there! They insist they must do a home visit, and most times we don't have a local foster home opening for the dog; we would fly it to an open home. :(

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Originally Posted by luvofallhorses

No problem! :) I expect more pics as they are growing.. they probably sleep right now a lot. :p

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Pretty much lol, can you image when they start walking around :eek:

Here's a pic of them from today..

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Originally Posted by Freedom

Bless you for taking in Hope and her babies! They are among the few lucky ones.

I only learned about MDAS from FB. They receive in 100 dogs PER DAY! And euthanize as many as they just don't have space. It is very sad. (I don't have info on cats, but it is equally bad.)

Sadly, many rescue groups, like the one I am with, are banned from pulling dogs there! They insist they must do a home visit, and most times we don't have a local foster home opening for the dog; we would fly it to an open home. :(

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Uggh that sucks, they have SO MANY purebreds, small breeds, puppies, its insane, last time I checked they had over 300 dogs currently at the shelter. I know it would be ideal for areas were shelters that don't get small dogs/puppies alot and have requests that they would ship these dogs out! So many rare breeds come in too like filas and even english bulldogs and once I've even seen a french bulldog and an afghan hound!!

I mean I would volunteer for the kill shelter in my own county, but its SO bad there, I decided to help out for that shelter. Even the rescue group I got the fosters from are located in my county, this shelter needs as much help as it can. Even rescues are overwhelmed with pulling dogs from there, even the small breed rescues like yorkies, chihuahuas, ect. They don't even have ac/heat for the dogs! Then they don't even vaccinate the dogs that don't have pending adopters so illnesses spread quickly there.

I tried to get my friend to adopt a pit bull from there (since he's from the county I'm from where pit bulls aren't banned unlike Miami, so they don't adopt them out to Miami residents) but was discouraged from all the sickly looking dogs they had, which I don't blame him, he ended up adopting a pit from a shelter here....he also said he didn't even see the pit bulls, which they keep away from the public that goes in a different ward :mad:

Are you apart of a bichon rescue? They get soooooooooo many bichons but label them poodles. I can image rescues that have more requests than actual dogs would love to pull from this shelter, they get a huge amount of dogs from almsot every breed imageable!

The rescue info has changed, for adoption its this website...http://www.bekindtoanimalsrescue.com/

Some good quality pics from today thanks to the person who rescued them came by for a visit.

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Oh my gosh! I want one!!!:love:

Things are not looking good :( She stopped producing milk so the pups are getting formula and IV fluid because they were really dehydrated along with the mom, who had loose stools and lost alot of fluids in the past few days from it. They all came with discharge from their eyes and nose and are very weak. Two puppies did not make it :( Out of the remaining five, I'll say maybe 3-4 will make it, the vet doesn't seem too sure any will survive.

The vet thinks she might have distemper. Which would explain the discharge, loose stools, kinda depress, and her not eating alot and that she came in real thin despite of being in the shelter for two weeks I believe. Her temp was taken today and it was 103 which I believe is a fever, it was 102 yesterday, she also vomitted today. The shelter is a breeding ground for illnesses and alot of parvo and distemper cases from that shelter since they often don't vaccinate until they have an adopter.

Did a parvo test today and it came out negative thank god, just waiting on the distemper test to come back. Can you guys give Hope and the pups some vibes that its not distemper and that if its just an infection/bacteria that they have as so far the fecal test shows that they get better?

Oh no!:( Pawsitive thoughts and prayers for Hope and her remaining puppies. Rest in Peace two little puppies.:(

Hope will have positive vibes from Indy that she can be easily treated
and whatever she has is not deadly. Poor little momma needs some "babying"
of her own.:( I wish I could take her home with me.

The distemper test came back positive :( I'm not sure what the rescue is planning on doing with her and the pups now, they don't want to put her to sleep so I think they are going to see if she recovers, but if she gets worst put her down. Still fostering her for now I guess until they can find another foster home that will take her. I don't want to risk my own dogs' health, even though they are vaccinated, there is still that likelihood that they can catch it. I've been a disinfecting bleaching nazi!!

They currently are getting formula every 4 hours along with their meds and IV fluid twice a day. Mommy is doing better too, eating more, is gaining weight, her discharge is almost gone and her stools are getting firmer. The remaining five pups are thriving, two are real active, one is kinda active, and the other two are so-so. They are all feeding good, with one who would eat for all five of them! But lets hope things keep improving and not go downhill from here and that they pull through this and recover. Hope is a sweetheart and would make a perfect snuggle partner to a very lucky person that would open their home and heart to be forever hers and her their heartdog! She deserves to have a real family that won't abandoned her in a shelter to die and the pups had such a rough start in life, need their happy endings too, so keep those prayers and vibes coming! Though it hasn't been easy to deal with everything going on with Hope and the pups, she and her pups have been a joy to care for and they will touch the hearts of anyone who crosses their paths with their sweet nature and will to live and have a 2nd chance in life. Atleast she has been loved and well cared for in a home and has had so much people who cared for her and has felt so loved and warm despite the cold weather these last few days and not of died in the shelter with her last days being in a cold (shelter has no heater) small cage, confused, scared, alone and unloved. She also is a very good mommy though she can't nurse she is still attentive to her puppies.

What chances do you think she'll survive since she seems to be doing better? Her records show that she was vaccinated at the shelter on the 4th I believe and she was there two weeks before I got a hold of her.

One of the rescue workers says the test might of showed up positive because of the vaccine since it was a live distemper virus that was in it? I don't know because she showed alot of the symptoms, even though they are fading away, I for sure thought she had to have something serious and went off to research what she could of had since that shelter is so prone to outbreaks even the vet by just looking at her said it looked like distemper. I don't know how much to rely on the rescue's word for it, because he was also talking about a distemper vaccine like to treat it, and I never heard of that. Vet says its best to put her down, I wanna go with the vets advice, but the rescue people are very against putting any dog to sleep. Being realistically I think with all the treatment they will be spending on this dog and her pups, they could use that towards saving another/more dogs. Its unforunate, but not everyone can be saved, and like I said atleast she had a good few days and not died at the shelter.

I'm a nervous wreck for her and my own dogs. All in all this experience has made me a little apprehensive about fostering dogs who's been at this shelter, but I would still like to foster just aslong as a dog is 100% free of parvo and distemper and its known for sure. Not only for the sake of my dogs, but I've also been walking this dog around my neighborhood, I'm afraid that other dogs could be exposed to the virus.

Also how is it exactly that dogs catch distemper, I've heard thats its just by direct fluid contact like sneezing, but read that its an airborne virus as well.

The whole thing is pissing me off that this shelter doesn't do more to prevent these sort of things from happening. I saw a post on their FB fanpage with another mom and litter and the poster saying how the mom doesn't let the other dogs near her pups. Why would they expose puppies to other dogs at the shelter?! They hardly have any immunity! There is just a whole lotta issues with the shelter, besides the outbreaks...the city mayor's fanpage is just filled with comments on the shelter, especially on the whole not having a heater for the animals.

I tried to get my friend to adopt a pittie from there since dade-residents can't adopt them, so I thought it would help to save a pittie since he's from broward but he was discouraged by the conditions of the shelter and animals, plus they don't keep the pit bulls in public view. He ended up adopting from a broward facility, which was much better well-kept. I understand they have a lot of intake and very few resources, but something should be done, MORE should be done. Image people bringing dogs they adopted to dog parks, ect and then to find out they have parvo, ect and infect more and more dogs in the process.

I'm so sorry your first fostering is turning so bad Candy.:( I will pray Hope and her puppies pull through.

Just visited a rescue page who pulls from the same shelter, and they've had EIGHT confirmed death cases from distemper, have two survivor dogs, one dog who's not out the woods just yet, and another who has developed neuro problems. And now Princess has developed a cough. *Sigh* Keep the vibes coming! I'm giving everyone doxy just incase.

Update::Unforunately none of the puppies made it, thought they seemed to get better for a while, their little bodies couldn't fight it off (they contracted distemper from being in the shelter). Hope has since gotten the Newcastle vaccine, iv fluids, some supplements/vitamins/nutrical and some doxyclycine (sp?) she seems to of fought off distemper. Still a little thin (could be her body type), but she's eating and drinking on her own, doesn't have any more discharge, and her energy is way better, playing, running, ect. Now Hope has hope and is on her way of getting adopted. :)

The shelter she came from was recently in the news for the use of the heartstick and firing the employee that released footage of it :(

Most recent pics...

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I am sorry the pups didn't make it. :( (((hugs))) Hope is beautiful, I hope she finds her forever home soon. :)

I'm sorry about the pups Candy.:(