Our first neutering campaign starts with a bang.

As soon as we open the clinic, our neighbours, who have a plant and flower business, show up at the door insisting we follow them out. They tell us a stray dog gave birth in their shed and ask us to “do something.” They have concerns that once all the puppies become more independent, they’ll start getting into our neighbours’ greenhouses and cause damage.

We approach the shed carefully. We don’t know the mother and it is a safe assumption that she might be protective of her brood or even aggressive. 
What we encounter is a big black female dog and her puppies in the middle of breakfast. She is looking up at us with a mixture of guardedness, curiosity, and some marked vulnerability.

We give mom a chance to study us and reassure herself that we are no threat. Once she leaves, we enter carefully and manage to count five puppies that were still blind mere day or two ago. It is too early to move them so we convince the neighbours to leave them in the shed for a bit longer. Once they’re 50 days old, we’ll take care of them: deworm and delouse them, vaccinate them, and look for foster and forever home for them. 

Several weeks later we are back to find not five but nine big, beautiful puppies outside their ‘birthplace.’

We follow up on our promises and gather the pups. The mom is coming with us too.

Time to take care of any parasites. It’s not exactly a treat but it’s very important.

Mom and pups are inseparable – though she is sweet and good-natured. Good ‘read’ on people too. It’s as if she senses that we’re there to help and not do any harm.

 A few days later, all the puppies get their first vaccine.

The mother is the last in line for the vaccine. She is a truly remarkable dog – young, beautiful and possessing a rarely calm disposition for a dog her age. She is trusting and intuitive in her evaluation of the situation, sociable too. She would make an amazing companion.

The young ones can’t stay on the property any longer. They are gaining independence by the day and are roaming the nearby fields. We end up collecting them from all over the place. A week after getting their vaccines, it’s time to part with their mom. Our friends from the shelter The Little Paws of Nevrokop will house them even though they are overcrowded. Finding homes for so many puppies that are sure to grow very big will be a challenge too. The mother will have to stay in Banichan – there is simply no more space for her in the shelter.

 A MOTHER FOR A MOMENT LONGER

Just a day after the puppies are transferred to the shelter, their mom moves in the yard by our clinic. But then there is a plot twist - Lyubka, our faithful local volunteer, woke up to receive a ‘package’ waiting for her outside her door: six helpless puppies in a box. She brings them over to the clinic in the hope that the mom would adopt them and still have milk for them – at least for a short while.

Our friend Marianne, the Swiss volunteer, watches after the pups while Lyubka is trying to get the solitary mother to approach them.

She isn’t enthusiastic but she does end up being curious.

While Lyubka gives her some TLC, the mom lets the new babies have a meal, patient and calm.

 (AFTERWORD)

Alas, mom is running out of milk. We just can’t bear to leave her behind as we wrap up our campaign. Lyubka takes her back to her hometown of Sandanski, where she will try to place her with a foster family, while looking for a more permanent solution.
Three months later, there is good news for the first litter of puppies – they have all been adopted. More good news follow – the six puppies the mom adopted have also found their forever homes. But the mom – strikingly big but oh so gentle – is still waiting for someone to open their heart and home for her.