Page 18 - Assisi Paw Prints issue 95

PUPPY FARMS...

...the dark side of dog breeding

One Friday afternoon in November 2021, about an hour
before home time, we got a call from Animal Welfare to
say that a puppy farm had been raided and they urgently
needed us to take in three small dogs. Shortly after, a
dachshund, a pug, and a heavily pregnant chihuahua/pug
mix arrived, all incredibly nervous and none of them well
socialised at all. We named them Ginny, Stella, and Sierra.

Over that weekend we tried to help them settle in as best
we could, but all three girls were very wary of us and kept
their distance. They had never been walked on leads and
froze when we attempted to take them out so instead, we
tried to sit with them in their kennels to gain their trust, but
they watched us with eyes wide and we knew they had a
big journey ahead of them. The Monday after they arrived,
they were health checked by our vet. Ginny and Stella were
estimated to be around 3 years old and both needed to
be spayed and have hernias repaired; Stella also needed
surgery on her nose as she had been irresponsibly bred
surviving puppies, two girls and six boys.
to gain the signature flat face of a pug, and as a result
had been born with stenotic nares. This is a congenital
Lucy and Connie started the hard task of encouraging the
condition where cartilage in the nose forms incorrectly and
pups to start suckling but Sierra became very overwhelmed
causes the nostrils to be far too narrow, making it more
and lay on her front so they couldn’t access her teats. The
difficult to breathe. Sierra, estimated to be no older than 18
vet arrived at the sanctuary just before 7am to give each
months, had a nasty gash under her ear and was estimated
of them their first health check and tube feed; she said
to give birth in around 7 days.
they were healthy but needed to go on foster as soon as
possible so regular feeding could be monitored. Staff said
Sierra’s Story
Having been prescribed antibiotics and pain relief, Sierra
soon started to come around and we saw her independent
personality start to flourish and her confidence grow. We
contacted our experienced mum and pup fosterers but
the only one available said they wouldn’t be free until the
coming weekend. We had to hope that Sierra could wait
until then but, of course, that was not the case.

A camera had been set up in Sierra’s room and was linked
to the phones of dog team members Lucy and Connie. The
night before Sierra was due to go on foster, neither one of
them could sleep worrying about her and, after checking
the cameras and seeing Sierra carrying a puppy in its
amniotic sac, they made a mad 4am dash to the sanctuary
to help her. When they arrived the first thing they saw was a
puppy still in its sac in a corner of the room - the poor pup
was likely her first and she may have been too confused to
know what to do, meaning it didn’t survive. Luckily, instinct
must have kicked in because when the girls approached
Sierra’s bed, they found 9 puppies licked clean and tucked
up in a blanketed nest that she had made. Sadly, Sierra was
laying on one pup and although Connie tried her hardest to
revive it, it became the second angel baby. However, for an
inexperienced mum she did a fantastic job of caring for the

18 ISSUE NO. 95 | SPRING / SUMMER 2022