I'm back and have to say...this was the craziest trip I've ever done! Me and my sister headed out on the road about 4:00 am, left calgary about 5:00 am and were on our way to Whitewood, Sask. The drive there was pretty uneventful and we made awesome time! Made it there in about 8 hours which is amazing (not going to say how fast we were going
). When we arrived we saw the truck we were meeting to pick up the 9 pups with this on the back:
Here's mum
He had 3 dogs crammed in that box and his buddy had pretty much the same set up with another 4 adults there. We chatted a bit with myself trying to be as nice as I could - we talked about his old dogs and how he 'just got rid of them' when they couldn't hunt coyotes anymore - I'm going to forward his info onto my group to see if we can find homes when he's done with them rather than having him 'get rid of them'. I don't even want to know....
We loaded the first litter of pups in the back of the truck:
And then moved onto the second - there's a problem though, these aren't purebred greyhounds as their ears are waaaayyy to long and they are absolutely screaming everytime his buddy sticks his hand in the box to grab one. I'm choking back the tears because they are just so scared - I'm not going to leave these dogs here to a crappy life and then a brutal end just because their ears are a little too long. I saw their daddy, they do look like greyhounds they're just a bit thicker in the head and have longer ears.
I make sure they know that I"m not coming back for another litter of puppies as I don't want them breeding more knowing that I'll come pay for them for sure. We part ways and I just start crying in the back of the truck, crying for the scared puppies in the back (the older black ones) and the fact that there was supposed to be 9 full greyhounds I'm bringing back and now I only have 4 (sister kept one). I'm not sure if people will want them with their beautiful floppy ears and Immediately make some phone calls letting the group know that it's okay if they don't want them - I'll pay and find homes for them. In all honesty I would of rather left the purebreds and taken the mixes, the purebreds had a better owner - he knows their personalities, was sad to see them go and you could tell they had been handled in a gentle way their whole lives. The big 4 mth old mixes screamed when people came near them, were covered in poo and vomit and cowered away from everyone, their bellies were swollen with what I'm guaranteeing is a full parasite load, they were by far in more need of rescuing than the purebreds.
The angels at Chinook Winds let me know that it's okay and we'll find homes for everyone - my heart just soared, people's kindness with this whole fiasco have just flabbergasted me. I'm in awe!
We wait around as we're meeting a family who's taking a puppy right away - they're pre-approved adopters and pick up this beautiful little girl as a friend for their Frank. They said they'll probably name her Bean - Frank and Beans!
Off we go! We're driving and driving and thinking "Hey, we'll probably make it back for about 10:00 pm - awesome! Just enough time to wash dogs and get them settled with a good nights sleep" as we're both running on about 3 hours now...Not going to be the case. We hit this MASSIVE freak snowstorm just before Moose Jaw and it's white-out conditions. My sister is driving and she's scared, everytime a semi passes us it's a complete white out and she cries and loses control of the truck. I tell her to pull over and let me drive as I'm more calm than she is and she says she's okay - the next semi that passes us she loses sight of the road and drives us straight into the ditch into about 3-4' of snow - we're stuck with 8 puppies and ourselves in the truck, it's not going anywhere....
A lot of people pulled over asking if we needed a ride/help but we can't leave the truck with these puppies in the back so we wait it out - a cop shows up and calls a tow for us, we waited about an hour and a half. The storm is moving east and we're going west so we wait for it to clear a bit and head for moose jaw with the storm behind us. Mum says there's a severe wind waring between Moose Jaw and the alberta border. Wind is nothing after we just went through that mess!
Boy o boy was I wrong. You couldn't see (not exaggerating) 1/2 a foot in front of you. We're going about 30 km/hr just trying to get through this - it's a complete white out, way worse than the storm. Sask is very, very, very flat so the wind (50km/hr) is blowing all the snow across the field and onto the road. I'm driving in the middle of the road so I can watch the dotted lines and see where the road is - I'm okay but I can't do this for 2 hrs so we pull into a small town looking for a room that will take us and our babies in the back. No luck, the RCMP station is closed and the motels are full. The RCMP says to wait out out *we phoned* but with no idea how long this is going to take and the puppies already in the back for hours now we take back to the road. There are semi's in the ditches, cars parked in the middle of the highway - it's insane.
We finally find a room about 15 km away that will take us and our friends. So we get there very slowly, stick everyone in the bathtub as we move crates into the room about midnight. dogs are peeing everywhere in the bathroom, we are frazzled and tired and we finally get to lay down. The room is freezing and we use the extra blankets that the dogs aren't using to keep ourselves warm when about 20 min in the puppies start screaming. They want out and I don't blame them - but I can't let them run around and poo everywhere so we just try to ignore them with hopes they'll just goto bed....no luck. Finally we give up and pack everyone up back into the truck about 2:30 am and head out again - we cleaned the bathroom with hand soap and toilet paper...I just paid $99 to stay in a room for 2 1/2 hours....oy!
The storm was gone and we were on our way. We hit calgary about 7:00 in the morning and made it home about 8:00 am...wow. We unload everyone and let them play in the back yard where my dogs get frustrated and mad. The puppies had a good time! then it was bath time - me and my sister washed 8 dogs in like an hour and a half! Everyone came in and dried off and played in the house. The black guys just huddled in a ball in the x-pen...poor puppies
and then finally calmed down enough to sleep...
The other rug-rats played and played and played!
I really liked this little girl...
And one even tried to cuddle with Sophie - which she ignored...
