Homes for all nine?

Randy Dewberry of Baxley, Ga., tells about the negotiations, phone calls, and, yes, chicanery, it took to secure the future of nine puppies orphaned when only about two weeks old.

We meet tireless Dalva Fink, Brazil-born manager of Coffee County’s “bare bones” Humane Society. Randy calls her “a true hero, a feisty woman willing to take a chance,” and continues:

The first day with the puppies had us scrambling for a place to put our new wards of nature. One puppy pooting is one thing, nine puppies pooting is a real mess. But you look down at your feet and they look up with their eyes saying, “We miss our mother” and “Would you hold me?”

The base for a very large clay flower pot became the nearest thing we had to their mother’s feeding arrangement, large enough to let them all have a place. I would guess their mother had to move them around to share with nine mouths and eight milky things. We had to do the same when the puppy food and skim milk hit the makeshift plate. No matter how we did it, one would be squeezed out of the feeding frenzy. Some could fight their way back by either going over the top or plowing under the wiggling fur above like a mole, but one or two during a feeding would accept their fate of being pushed out. Never the same ones, oddly enough.

It became my wife’s favorite undertaking to stand over the bowl so nutritional justice would be done. Of course, each one pushed out got a good belly rub and a face hug before being placed into an empty slot.

The puppies rarely whined and seemed content with this new arrangement.
We weren’t.

In one day we went from two dogs and one old cat without any teeth, to those plus nine puppies. But we were in charge as it were, given this assignment by luck or by God. Either way, we were responsible for their lives.

Our first thought was to give them away as soon as they were old enough, a solution that kept coming back to forethought as doors opened, then closed. One of us would always counter with the reality of rural life, that animal control is often nonexistent and our puppies themselves could be in the puppy business before the end of their first year. Not a good thought.

A friend had said how well the Douglas Humane Society had performed placing dogs in good homes. Well, that must be the answer.

It was Saturday, and our phone call to the shelter was actually to a Huddle House, one number off from the shelter’s number. “Bring the puppies on,” the man had told my wife. We felt scared, but good about what we were doing, not knowing we had talked to a Huddle House resident. We called back for directions, using the redial, and a woman answered the phone, “Huddle House.” When we finally got the number right, the shelter had closed for the weekend.

Although it was a bit of bad luck, we were relieved. Monday I “met” Dalva over the phone. Things were uncertain with the puppies being so young, and Parvo having become a problem in their shelter, and I had my self-imposed stipulation that all the puppies would find new homes.

In the meantime I called Waycross but they wanted $25 per puppy and gave no assurance that they could place them. I called Savannah Humane Society and offered the same deal to them: If they could not find a home I pledged to take what puppies were left back to raise at our home.

“No,” the woman who answered said. “We can”t do that.” The only thing we had left outside of adding nine dogs to our menagerie, was this transfer Dalva spoke of, but she said the puppies’ age might well be a deal breaker. This was to be a one-shot deal if a deal at all, since it would be awhile to the next transfer, meaning the puppies would be growing out of that cute, very marketable, age.

[I think the term “transfer” here means that periodically a larger animal shelter, in a larger jurisdiction, has room and resources to accept animals from smaller, overburdened facilities. It figures that a city has more tax-funded space, fewer strays, and more would-beadopters, while a rural county struggles to find space, depends on donations, has more unneutered strays, and fewer applicants for adoption.]

Randy continues: After talking with Dalva, we were to take her the puppies Saturday, but there was a catch: She’d take only four puppies.

If the transfer failed, we were to come get them Sunday.

Saturday morning that sounded good, but when we went to feed the puppies at noon we started having all kinds of doubts, wondering what we were getting them into.

Then came the selection of the four. Which four? It shouldn’t be a problem; we had heeded the warnings. “Do not name the dogs,” our friends had said.

Well, we almost followed that maxim. There were the two sky-blue-eyed dogs we called Redford and Newman, and the little guard dog. And we each had our favorites.

My wife said, “You choose.” I gave her a dirty look custom-fit to the situation, based on 38 years of marriage. She knew what it meant. It was my job and I hated she reminded me of it.

Could not look at my wife in fear both of us would be shamelessly crying in the backyard. We were both ready to adopt all nine, but Dalva had said that if the transfer worked, the four we picked out would have very good homes.

How could we choose?