By carollcOn

chihuahua puppy

Last Monday there was a post on Nextdoor where a woman was selling puppies for $25 each. The picture wasn’t very good, but I could count at least 5 puppies and there seemed really young to be sold. A lot of people tried convince her to surrender them to a shelter or let any of us get all them together to surrender, I said I could pick them up. She said that her father wanted money and he needed to get rid of the puppies until next day.

At some point, a neighbor (Ninette, that I had never met before) contacted me privately and told me that she called the woman and she agreed to sell all them to Ninette, for $300. Ninette said she didn’t have all this money, but that she could pay $150 and they agreed. Ninette text me to check if I could hold the puppies for one day and if I could go with her to take the puppies, we’re both afraid to go alone.

We got there, was a house in East Palo Alto, the mama dog came to the gate and the woman’s father came to see us. He said there were 6 puppies, that the male dog was a chihuahua too and that they belonged to a neighbor that suffered an accident (lost a leg, and few days after back home had an accident with something full of hot water, weird story…) and the person couldn’t take care of herself anymore, so the family got rid of the dogs, giving them to this guy, that was selling them as fast as he could, like a bag of potatoes.

As soon as he opened the gate, the mama dog came directly to me, very calm and happy, wagging her tail. Ninette went inside to take the puppies, paid the guy and we left with all the 7 dogs, yep, all seven!

I called my coordinator at PHS&SPCA (I’m a volunteer there) to ask for help, but she said they had a puppy with parvo and she is worried about our tiny puppies getting sick, being too young to be vaccinated or to survive at. They were running low on fosters too, but she said she would try to find but that we should try to find someone too. I contacted Copper’s Dream Rescue, Pound Puppy Rescue and Rocket Dog Rescue too. Until today just PPR answered, but they couldn’t take our little family, they have lots of puppies too.

Many neighbors that were in the NextDoor thread said they want to help with donations and even help to find good homes for the puppies and the spay surgery for the mama, when the time comes.

I had them for two nights and we found a foster family. They live in a city near here (like 1 hour distance) and will keep them for a couple of weeks, after that we already have 2 other foster homes. We got donations: pee pads, kibble, can food, a bed, water/food bowls, a blanket and Ninette is organizing a gofundme page because our neighbor want to help with donations too.

Yes, they will grow healthy, find lovely homes and thrive and this because of all support we got from our neighborhood.

Our puppies and mama Feisty are great and the cutest little furry things, as you can see here, but I need to say that all this situation could have been avoided with responsible ownership. I understand that people don’t always have a lot of money but they have a pet, I get it, they make our lives brighter and full, but please, spay and neuter your pets. If you already find difficult to take care of one pet, can you imagine having a litter of puppies/kittens/bunnies to take care of? They need good food, vet care, vaccines, attention, love, exercise, you can’t just throw them away like garbage or give them to your neighbor sell them on NextDoor or craiglist. This guy took advantage of the situation, but he is not the problem, the problem is who don’t spay/neuter their pets with so many pets dying every day in all the crowded shelters.

You don’t neutered you dog because that “macho” bullshit? You are the problem. You don’t spayed/neutered your dog because you want sell puppies and have an extra income? You are the problem.

We have lots of options around the Bay Area if you don’t have money to go to the vet and get your pet fixed. Many organizations have low cost clinics (for vaccines too) and even free spay/neuter for people that can’t afford it at all.

Free and/or low cost spay/neuter clinics:

There is no excuse.