It’s a normal day on a construction site in St. Louis, Missouri. Well, it’s not quite so normal.
As a construction worker goes to fetch materials, he passes a pile of drainpipes. But it’s not just the pipes – a white paw is peeking out of one of them.
A family has gone into hiding
The man and his colleagues walk around the pile and now see a head peeking out of the pipe. There is a dog in the drainpipe.
He is obviously not happy that he has been discovered, because he growls at the workers. Behind him, however, the men hear a polyphonic whining.
Now they realize why the dog is growling – it’s a mother protecting her babies. The construction workers immediately contact the animal rescue „Stray Rescue of St. Louis“.
When employee Donna Lochmann arrives with her colleague, she is faced with the question of how to move the mother dog and her puppies out of the pipe.
A big surprise
Donna has an idea. She kneels down a little way away from the pipe and keeps throwing pieces of sausage to the dog.
He stops growling and eagerly eats the treat. With every piece of sausage, he realizes more and more that he can trust this woman.
Donna slowly approaches as she continues to throw pieces of sausage. Soon she is close enough to put a collar and lead on the dog and pull him out of the pipe.
But there’s a big surprise outside: the dog isn’t a mom, it’s a dad!
Even for Donna, who has rescued many dog parents with babies, this is unusual:
„There have been times when the dad has been there with the mom, but I can’t remember another rescue where it was just the dad with the puppies and no mom. It’s definitely rare for that to happen.“
The dog’s dad is now safely in the car, but the puppies are still in the pipe. To be more precise, they are spread over three tubes – one tube per puppy.
Unfortunately, the puppies are still sitting right in the middle of the pipes. But Donna and her coworker have a plan.
One carefully pushes the puppies from behind with a pole and the other picks them up at the front. Puppy after puppy is taken into the safe care of the animal welfare workers.
The little family feels so safe on the car journey that they all fall asleep peacefully.
At the shelter, the big relief follows: the single dad and his three children are all healthy.
