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Meet Mary, a pregnant Pit Bull who was brought to a shelter with a very high kill rate.
“My fiancee saved her from shelter that was a day away from putting her down, puppies and all,” Aaron Colby, Mary’s foster parent, explains to DogHeirs.com.
Mary was very pregnant when she was saved from a shelter
“Her time was up at the shelter and she was so close to being put down but a heroic effort by the rescue and over $1000 in donations from people around the country managed to pay the fees and get her our of there… the only thing she needed was a foster. That’s where we came in!”
“She was more than ready to give birth but she waited as long as she could so as to avoid having them in a scary kennel.”
Mary was very pregnant and very thin when she was saved from a shelter
“You can see how emaciated she is here back at our place but carrying a heavy load of pups.” “We basically have kept her food dish full around the clock for the past month and she’s put on some weight and her coat is getting soft and pretty again. Turns out if you feed a dog 5 times a day though, they will poop 5 times a day too :/”
“2 days later it started!”
“Mary was whining and groaning for 2 days under such a heavy load. I was out walking our other foster dog while Laura was watching Mary, ready to help when labor started. When I got back (around 11PM) Laura looks up at me and says “still no puppies”, I look over at her and say “isn’t that one right there?”. Sure enough, Laura was so engrossed in messaging people and making sure we knew what we were doing that Mary had delivered her first pup with no fuss whatsoever!”
“Mom will pull them towards her, tear the placenta sack open, lick them until they start breathing and get dry and then eat up the sack and placenta and bite off the umbilical cord… crazy that she just KNOWS how to do everything.”
“All in all, Mary was in labor for 16 hours!!! She delivered an incredible 12 puppies but unfortunately the last 3 took so long to deliver that they were still born. Another pup seemed quite unresponsive but Mary and Laura were able to revive it successfully. Another stressful thing was ensuring Mary did not squish any of the pups under her while she was moving around.”
“Mary’s nipples are pretty deformed so we weren’t sure if she would be able to nurse all or any of the pups but it turns out everything worked as it should and all the pups were able to do their thing. Mary has 9 nipples which works out well for the 9 pups.”
“We think her nipples are so messed up because she was a mom in a puppy mill where they didn’t know what they were doing (or didn’t care, same difference). The likely let the pups nurse way too long and didn’t wean them properly meaning they were nursing way too much even after they got their teeth which basically left her nipples calloused and scarred.”
“These funny little pups didn’t look like much when the first got here. Their eyes and ears are closed for the first two weeks and they just kind of paddle around by scent and feel. One would always seem to end up on top of Mary.”
The puppies have two modes, explains Aaron – sleep and eat. “If they are not sleeping, they are eating. Only around week 3 do they start to walk and play and around week 4 they start to run!” Aaron adds, “Lots of mess, the washer/dryer and going constantly and we are glad to live next door to Costco for easy access to things like puppy pads.”
“She seemed so excited to show her pups to anyone that came over to visit…
‘Hey look what I made!’
‘You made these?’
‘I made these!’”
“Skip ahead 2 weeks and they’ve more than doubled in size and their eyes are open and they are learning about the world in a whole new way.”
“Not sure if she’s happy to be having a nap with her pups or desperate to get out without waking them. When she gets in there to nurse now it literally looks like a pen of piranha dogs! We are now letting Mary nurse only a few times a day and are feeding the puppies a mixture of mushy puppy chow and goat’s milk which they devour voraciously!”
“More often than not now she nurses standing up since the pups are all so big!”
“The puppies get their own little pen and we let Mary in a few times throughout the day. The pen is based off the ‘Misty Method’ which divides their area into sleep, bathroom, play/eat and helps them learn to be potty trained almost before people take them home, also helps keep cleanup more manageable.”
Aaron says at this point that that he and his fiance are fosterers to Mary. “We may keep her, we sure do love her, but if we find a new home for her we’ll be able to take in other fosters in the future and find homes for them too so either way the dogs win! In any event we are not actively looking for a home for her so she’ll be with us for the foreseeable future.”
He adds, “We will probably keep her at the very least until she gets her spay and all her shots so that she won’t have to stress with a new home after a surgery.”
As for Mary’s nine puppies, Aaron says “Adoptions will happen through the rescue that we are fostering for and they will help ensure they all go to good healthy homes!”
The puppies, who appeared to be pure American Pit Bull Terriers, were made available for adoption when they were ready. Aaron did a fantastic job taking care of Mary and her pups. This article first appeared on DogHeirs.com on Nov 20, 2013. Photos published with permission from Aaron Colby.
