Help Save Abandoned Animals like Duke

I so much wanted to email you with an update in time to celebrate Giving Tuesday, but found that I just had no time to do it. We were all completely swamped with a huge intake of animals and some really sick babies too. 

There was a serious hoarding case, and overnight we added over a dozen large adult dogs, plus three nursing moms! Those three moms had 18 babies between them. 

We are very grateful to everyone that took time to go to our wishlists and send food and toys! The babies have played and played with their toys (and some of the moms have too). 

A few of the adults got into a disagreement over food right before they were all brought in, and three of them ended up at the veterinary clinic with some really nasty wounds. It complicated our daily routines for multiple reasons: first, we had to administer antibiotics, clean wounds, and medicate them and second, there was a mycoplasma spreading rampantly in the community and at the vet clinic. 

You guessed it... the dogs brought this germ to our shelter! This bad boy is a  respiratory bacteria that there are no vaccines for and is highly contagious (including to other species..even humans). All of a sudden, dogs were coughing and hacking! We  administered antibiotics in the hope that it would help. We battled it for over two weeks, and the worst part was that one of the litters of puppies also contracted it. 

We were extremely careful, but it still got to them. One puppy died and another, Magic, struggled for almost a month. He put up with lots of shots, oral meds, and using a nebulizer multiple times a day. The other pups only got mild cases of it. 

As you can imagine, we were overwhelmed with everything that we were dealing with. What was even more frustrating was that the puppies were just getting over a bacterial infection on their skin when this happened. They just couldn't catch a break and neither could we. 

Four of the adult dogs are heartworm positive and undergoing treatment. 

Just when we thought things would calm down, two kittens tested positive for FIP. The good news is that the drug that treats this disease is finally approved in the USA. The bad news is that it is very expensive. After less than a week though, improvements can be seen in their health. They will have to endure daily shots for a minimum of 84 days, so we have a long way to go. 

Battling so many diseases in a few short months has taken a toll on all of us. We won't lie, we are exhausted, but we are still fighting! 

Just today, we had to take in some mama cats and their kittens along with some other cats and kittens that were abandoned by their owners, who moved away in the night. It was a few days before the cats were found and they were so hungry and grateful to see full food bowls. 

And to top it off, boy have we had some cold weather! South Mississippi is just not equipped to deal with snow storms, and walking all of these dogs several times a day in the cold and snow has been a trial unto itself. I hope everyone is staying warm and cozy. 

Please consider donating to help us in this New Year! We need your continued support if we are to keep helping. 

Happy New Year and Thank you so much!