Velvet. An Orphaned Puppy

A street dog’s life isn’t just about roughing it out on the streets and playing the game of survival. There’s another side to it that we don’t often mention simply because it’s just too depressing to even get the discussion started.

Velvet's siblings born underneath a container.

Barely less than a month old. A whole life of misery ahead.

The litters of stray puppies may make your jaw drop in awe but behind those bright, shiny eyes is a reflection of an exhausted mummy dog that have conceived and delivered too many times.

An unsterilized female dog can start breeding as young as six months old. The day they start breeding marks the beginning of a life of hardship – being the target of all the male dogs in the vicinity and giving birth twice every year. At just six months old, they are still a puppy. Can you imagine a primary school child becoming pregnant repeatedly and giving birth at that tender age?

Little lonesome pup

Where's my mommy?

That’s not all. The cruelest part is to watch the puppies you’ve painstakingly nurtured and delivered fall prey to illnesses, accidents and abuse. And there’s nothing you can do to revive the cold, lifeless body – no amount of tears will change their fate, no amount of grief will bring them back. And the same exhausting life goes on, again and again until the mummy fall prey herself.

Playing with dangerous objects in a vacated factory

Why won’t people just adopt strays? Why is it that there is always this social stigma associated with street dogs?

We already have 13 dogs on hand and we have maxed out our list of existing fosters, and yet some of these dogs still haven’t found a home even after two years of wait. Due to our constraints, we’ve been wanting to turn down cases but rescuing dogs is in our blood and we just can’t seem to turn away.

Setting a trap for the puppies, who outwitted us

Recently, we caught a female stray puppy that had an injured left paw. We treated her and decided to have her sterilized as part of our sterilization program. She was around 3 to 4 months old then. At that age, many vets would have refused to conduct the surgery as early age neutering is considered a high-risk procedure. However, vets who work with strays often enough would know that it is much easier to catch and sterilize them when they are young before it is too late. Once they grow older, they are more likely to suffer abuse, which makes them a lot more cautious, guarded and wary of people. By then, we may have lost all our chances of catching them for sterilization.

Our only catch for the day

We have been feeding the puppy’s mommy for three years now. Until now, we still can’t catch her for sterilization. During this period of time, we have seen her give birth to four litters of puppies. The first two litters were successfully re-homed by us; the third litter was wiped out by a distemper outbreak last December; and there are only three puppies left of the seven puppies in this current litter. We’ve tried catching the last three of the litter but two of them have already grown so wary of us that catching them for sterilization seems next to impossible.

Velvet's Mommy was hit by a car a few days back and died on the spot

Poor puppy Velvet lost her mommy. 

Going to the vet for her sterilization

As for the puppy girl we’ve rescued, our original intention was to release her back to the streets when she’s recovered but we can’t bear to do so. She is so young, vulnerable and sweet – we can’t allow ourselves to see her rough it out on the streets and live life on the edge. Hence, we decided to pay extra money so she could stay at the vet for a few days while we find a temporary foster.

The puppy girl is currently at a foster home but the foster can only keep her for two weeks. Time is running out for her. We urge everyone who has the capability of caring for a dog to please consider adopting her.

Our little puppy girl is a local cross, estimated to be about three to four months old. She has undergone her first vaccination, with two more to go. We’ve got all her hygiene checks done – she’s sterilized, microchipped, and tested negative for both distemper and parvo virus.

Sweet puppy Velvet

This little girl is intelligent and has already learnt some basic commands. We’ve named her Velvet.

Please note that she is not HDB approved. Interested adopters or fosterers, please email hopedogrescue@singnet.com.sg  An adoption fee of $350 applies. This fee covers the cost of all three vaccinations, sterilization and microchip.

Meanwhile, here’s a video of the puppy girl and her siblings that we filmed a few months back. Looking at their living conditions, how many days, months, or years do you think they will live?

Watch video  http://youtu.be/N1dRASy_86g 

As we write this, her mommy was killed when a car hit her. She lived as a stray, died as a stray. Left behind are two of Velvet’s siblings, a mere 3 mths + with no mommy to care for them.

Help us change this little puppy Velvet’s fate. ADOPT HER.

Velvet is a local cross breed, female, sterilized and has had her first vaccination. She is will be medium sized when full grown, and not HDB approved.

Written by Claire Chai