Shepherd Dog Who Lost Puppies Sweetly Dotes on New Kittens
We all need a mom. By Austin Cannon September 04, 2020 Advertisement Pin FB More Tweet Email Send Text Message Print
A former street dog who tragically lost her litter of puppies earlier this summer has instead become a mother for a trio of kittens at her Arizona shelter.
The Sunshine Dog Rescue in Phoenix took in Georgia, a small shepherd mix, back in July. She’d been found “living” in a rural gas station on the Mexico border, the shelter wrote on Facebook.
Georgia with kittens Credit: Sunshine Dog Rescue on Instagram
A couple days after the shelter found her, the staff discovered she was carrying a litter of puppies. Sadly, she gave birth too early and required an emergency C-section and spay, the shelter wrote. None of the puppies survived.
Georgia physically recovered but was still searching for her puppies, even tearing up her mattress looking for them several weeks ago. Shelter staff gave her a stuffed puppy with an electric heartbeat that calmed her down.
“She definitely appeared depressed,” Sunshine Dor Rescue Executive Director Anita Osa tells 12 News. “But even more so, she was frantic.”
But then things started to turn around. The shelter took in three orphaned newborn kittens, and they soon found their new mom: Georgia. They snuggled with their new mom and have even tried feeding from Georgia. (One of the kittens unfortunately died.)
In late August, another kitten, Goober, joined the family. (The other two kittens are Graffiti and Gumball.) A video posted to Facebook shows all four of them snuggling in a kiddie pool together, Georgia being the doting parent by cleaning up one of her kids.
In fact, multiple videos show the quartet wiggling about in their little pool, happy as can be after a tragedy only a few weeks prior.
An unorthodox little family? Sure. But it’s worked.
“I was certainly unsure,” Osa tells 12 News. “But I had seen other species nurse another species before, so I thought, ‘Worse case scenario, she doesn’t take to them and I have some kittens I need to tend to myself.’”
More good news: Georgia and the kittens have families waiting for them . Georgia will hopefully get to stay with one of her kittens because the roommate of her adopter is taking in the cat, 12 News reports.
On Tuesday, the shelter posted that Georgia has developed a tumor that they suspect is a transmissible venereal tumor that would require chemotherapy. Luckily, the cancer is highly curable, but she sadly won’t be able to spend as much time with her babies once the treatment starts.
