We found a home for Big Boy a couple of days ago.

Then yesterday I got a call from the shelter. The puppies are on the adoption floor,
but Mama didn't pass the temperment test. She started a stress behavior the day before - something she did at our house the first night. She chased her tail in circles while barking, then when she caught it she'd chew it until it was bloody.

At our house I thought maybe there was a tick she was trying to remove or something,
but because of the way it manifested at the shelter, it's certainly a stress behavior. So
they consider her unadoptable - which means the end of Mama unless we took her back.

So I brought her home, knowing that there was a guy an hour or so away who was
interested in her. He'd called me the day before asking how she does in the car. The man is a trucker who got a male German shepherd puppy at Christmas for a companion while on long hauls. Turns out the puppy gets car sick!

Mama sounded like a good fit to me, so I referred him to the shelter. When I found
out about Mama's stress trouble, I called him back to see if he was still interested. He
was and he came today with his kids to pick her up.

So ... as my family was getting ice cream after our daughters' dance show last night, I got a phone call. A lady whose family fed the dogs for the week before we got them said her kids found "the other two!" When I talked to her earlier, neither of us mentioned how many puppies we were aware of. Turns out her family knew of six, but we didn't mention we only had four, so they were surprised to find the last two - about 1/2 mile away from each other.

The poor things had been on their own for 2 weeks! Through some pretty crummy weather. We took them in, of course - about 10 p.m. - and I was up most of the night with the sickliest, hungriest. I've never felt bones like that before! Like the pictures of people at Auschwitz! He is a furry skeleton with not much life in his eyes. He's the shaggiest of them all - kind of schnauzer face; a cute kind of homely. He seems to be responding pretty well. I can't even think about the possibility that he won't make it.

The other one is a female that looks like a shepherd. She's thin too, of course, but
fiesty, so I have no doubt she'll do OK. She's also adorable, so I'm betting she'll be
adopted quickly. I'm hoping to take her, "Cutie Girl" to the shelter and nurse "Buddy"
back to health. And we still have Girlie, of course. She's doing great now - especially
comared to the others.

I'm feeding the little one small amounts of food every few hours to start - He hasn't eaten much, but the other people had fed them both a ton before they brought them here. He has peed and pooped OK, so I figure that's a promising sign. And by morning he was able to get around OK on his own. It just sickens me to think of those 2 out there alone for nearly 2 weeks and what they must have been through!

I'm posting photos of the new puppies on spotted and will tell a little more about the individuals coming up....