When we got back to the main building, I spotted a litter of new puppies at the back of the building. Then I remembered in our visit last month, a brown dog was in the advance stage of pregnancy. These must be her puppies!
Aww…isn’t this sweet?
I got everybody over to take a look at the puppies. There were five of them.
Four of them had similar black and white markings.
Terry took them up one by one and examined them. And it was Terry’s keen eye which spotted signs of a skin infection on one of them. It looked infected as it already had pus. And upon careful examination, the rest of the puppies had it too, though less severe.
We weren’t sure what to do, so we asked Bro Sui if he had any medication or antiseptic dressing material which we could use to dress the wound. Bro Sui brought out two spray cans of medication for farm animals. The first one was more for cows, goats and other herbivores, but the second one had a picture of a dog and cat amongst cows, goats and other animals. We read the label and those Latin-sounding words sounded very much like camphor and cinnamon. Ok, natural herbs – ought to be safe.
So we sprayed a bit on the most badly-infected puppy and told one of the helpers to do the same twice a day for the next three days, and to taper it off after that.
As we were examining the puppies, Mummy-Dog came. Why, yes, I remember her! We were quite amazed that none of her puppies took after her at all. She’s completely chocolaty brown! The colour of chum-or-ping (coffee/tea mix)! The moment the puppies saw her, they rushed towards her for milk.
Here’s Mummy-Dog feeding her whole litter of five hungry (but healthy-looking) pups. It’s funny how she feeds them standing up and not lying down.
Then, I could not help noticing how thin she looked.
The three of us then thought perhaps she should bathe the puppies before going back since all five seemed to have that skin infection.
As we were getting the water ready, we couldn’t help worrying about the mother-dog looking so thin and under-nourished. I told Bro Sui to feed her the vegetarian kibbles – at least that’s a balanced diet. Bro Sui had been saying all along that he will not feed the vege kibbles to his own farm dogs because it’s so expensive, and on each trip, I would be urging him to go ahead and share all the food with his farm dogs.
So this time, seeing how thin the mother-dog was, I insisted that he got some vege kibbles for her. By the way, this mother-dog is not a Ketam dog. It is one of their own farm dogs. The Ketam dogs are all spayed and neutered.
She ate the vege kibbles quite heartily when I hand-fed her, but this naturally attracted the other farm dogs and when they came near, Mummy-Dog shied away and didn’t dare to eat anymore.
We had to distract the other farm dogs, and I noticed Mummy-Dog was extremely timid. The moment the other farm dogs came anywhere near her, she would immediately walk away.
Looking the situation, I gathered she is under-nourished because she cannot get to the food. Over here on the farm, it’s survival of the fittest and first-come-first-served. The three of us talked it over and decided it may be a good idea to bring the entire family back to be fostered. Also, it would be better to get a vet take a look at the puppies’ skin problem.
But who would be willing to foster an entire family of dogs?
And it suddenly occured to me that my friends, Andrew and Yi Lin had offered to foster any “emergency case” for me, should I need their help.
Does this qualify as an emergency? Well, yes…the puppies have some skin infection and the mother-dog is so under-nourished.
So, after a few phonecalls, I managed to talk to Andrew and Yi Lin and both said YES!
YES!!!!
We will take this family home with us!
So we looked for a box for the puppies and another one for the mum.
After a feast of durians (goodwill gesture of Bro Sui and his helpers), we loaded the puppies and Mummy-Dog into the car. By the way, while we were eating, the dogs too came and ate durians with us! Mummy-Dog ate quite a bit too. She loves durians.
Bro Sui kept apologising for having inconvenience us with the mother-dog and her puppies, but we reassured him that it was okay. We do understand that LLLF is not quite equipped with the humanpower or knowledge to look after dogs – that was their initial concern when I appeal to them to take the Ketam dogs. I resorted to LLLF because the dogs were going to be euthanised already. Between euthanasia and a less-than-perfect sanctuary, surely you would choose LLLF, right? At least the dogs would get to live out their natural lives, albeit living by the laws of nature. No other sanctuary was willing to take them.
So, it’s ok, Bro Sui. Please don’t feel bad. We will do whatever we can, to help you out.
In you go now, Mum-Dog. You’re all going for a ride.
Luckily I had driven my daughter’s MyVi. The backseat could be folded and reclined so there was just enough space for Mummy-Dog and the puppies, and Ainey!
What about me? Do I get a ride too?
Aww…I wish we could take you too!
So we said our goodbyes to the farm dogs.
Bye, doggies…(er, what’s that behind your ear?). Dog-lovers will always be dog-lovers.
Be good, you guys…
We’ll come and see all of you again, next month. And bring you goodies to eat!
So we left the beautiful LLLF as Bro Sui and his helpers waved goodbye.
The journey back was quite eventful, actually. The puppies seemed quite stressed initially, because they were in a box by themselves. So Ainey had to take them out and put them with Mummy-Dog and they were okay.
Midway in the journey, Mummy-Dog threw up…arrgh…it was all durian vomit!! We stopped by the roadside and had to clean up the car! Two of the puppies also vomited, but it was just a wee bit.
Later, Terry had to cuddle one of the puppies all the way for the rest of the journey. Puppy was so happy!!
We finally reached Subang Jaya at 12.30pm, and Terry had to go home because he had an appointment. So we dropped Terry off, and Ainey and I proceeded with the family of dogs to the vet at Mayo Clinic.
Next posting, please…
