Family saves dog abandoned on the roadside and her six newborn pups

A FAMILY’S team effort, led by a volunteer with Pet FBI animal sanctuary in Londonderry, has saved the life of an abandoned dog and her six pups.

The heavily pregnant dog arrived at the home of Lisa Patton in September after she was discovered by a member of the public.

Without this intervention, Lisa, who volunteers with the animal welfare group, said the young dog would have had to give birth in a ditch or along the roadside, and she and her pups would have perished.

Now named Everest, the animal gave birth to a litter of six a week after making herself at home with Lisa, but just days later she rejected her newborns.

This left Lisa — assisted by her husband and two daughters — facing the massive task of hand-rearing them all and so began a round-the-clock battle against the odds to keep the six little bundles alive, fed, watered and loved.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Lisa said: “I took a call from a member of the public who said she had found a dog in a very distressed state so I told her to bring it to me.

“I was a bit surprised to see that the dog, which we called Everest, was heavily pregnant so I took her to the vet who told me she was ready to give birth at any time.

“We made a whelping area

The six pups which were born to a pregnant dog rescued from the streets

ready for her and she delivered six pups a week later.”

Everest, who, at around a year old is not much more than a pup herself, did well for the first week as a new mum but then kept sitting on her litter, burying them and dragging them by the back leg across the kitchen floor.

“I knew then I would have to step in or she would have killed the pups, so me, my two daughters and my husband worked around the clock bottle-feeding all six.

“The smallest one — we called him Tiny Tim because he was less than half the size of the others — had been bottle-fed from day one by me because he just wasn’t going to survive,” she said.

“He has done so well, in fact he did that well we couldn’t call him Tiny Tim any longer and renamed him Arlo.”

New homes have been found for five of the litter and their mother, but the idea of parting with the puppy formerly known as Tiny Tim was too much for Lisa so he has become the latest rescue animal to join the Patton household.

“People have asked me if it was hard to give them up and it was to an extent, but at the same time you are constantly cleaning up.

“They are lovely dogs who have gone to really good homes but I just couldn’t part with Tiny Tim,” she said.