Ensuring her Legacy

In the hills outside Bethlehem, near the town of Al Khader, there are caves in the rocky ground. Stray dogs use them for shelter, and sometimes to give birth, presumably because they feel safe and quiet.

It was in one of these caves that a local man found her.

A mother dog, lying still. She had been nursing. And pressed against her body were eight newborn puppies, crying, climbing over her, still trying to feed.

She had died with her babies beside her. They were only days old, eyes still closed, and they did not understand that she was gone.

The man contacted the Bethlehem Shelter, a partner ROLDA is proud to support. He was told to fetch milk and bottles, and to hurry. He went back to the cave and tried to feed them himself, one at a time, out in the open where they had been found.

But the puppies were already dangerously weak. Newborns cannot regulate their own temperature. They cannot go long without milk. Every hour they had spent beside their mother waiting for milk that would never come had cost them.

They needed more than one man with a bottle could give.

That was when Diana from the shelter stepped in. She collected all eight puppies, bought formula, and took them into foster care, then straight to a vet.

What followed was the kind of work that does not make for easy reading. Round-the-clock bottle feeds. Warmth. Constant watching. And the fear, always present, that not all of them would make it.

That fear proved right. Three of the puppies were simply too weak, and despite everything Diana and the vet team did, they slipped away.

We could leave that part out. We would rather tell you the truth, because the truth is that rescue work does not always end the way we want it to, and the people who do this work carry those losses.

But five puppies are still here.

Five orphans who are being bottle-fed, kept warm, and watched over every day. They are still tiny, and the next few weeks are the most fragile of their lives. But they are no longer alone in a cave, and they are no longer waiting for a mother who cannot answer. I like to think she would have taken some comfort in knowing that they found help and her legacy lives on through them.

This is what happens when someone refuses to walk away. A man who could have kept walking made a phone call. A shelter answered it. A rescuer opened her home. And behind all of them stand you and other supporters of the ROLDA Rescue Team, whose kindness makes it possible to say yes when the call comes in.

Five small lives are being carried through their most fragile days right now. That is your kindness at work. Thank you for making it possible.