By Martial Haprov
EDITOR
What started as a fluke visit for a midday meal turned into a mission to save 10 lives.
Ana Estrada said she stopped by Maxwell’s Restaurant on Wika Road near Highway 18 and Apple Valley Road on Wednesday for lunch — on a whim.
“When we got there, the owner said, ‘Did you see the dog that had puppies in the bushes? It might have been left here,’ ” Estrada said. “They said they were going to call the pound, but I said, ‘Don’t call the pound — I know someone who works with a rescue and they’ll come get the puppies.’ ”
Estrada got on the phone to her friend, Charlotte Hamilton, whose electric fencing company, Hot Dog Fence, works with Pets Forever Found, a non-profit animal rescue organization with locations in Apple Valley and Oak Hills.
“I call (Pets Forever) and they immediately come out or send someone out,” Hamilton said. “They don’t have any preference — they care about all dogs in all situations and have always been there for me.”
Estrada said they’d seen the older dog who had appeared to have recently given birth, but didn’t see or hear any newborn pups.
She stayed at the restaurant for a couple of hours with her friend, Sharon Scoyne, as they awaited the arrival of workers from Pets Forever.
“Just as we were going to leave, the pound showed up and started chasing the mama dog around,” Estrada said. After some conversation, the animal control workers agreed to release the elder female dog to Estrada and Scoyne after they’d checked the dog for a micro-chip.
“She was very calm and docile, but she was clearly full of milk — she’d definitely just had puppies and maybe was still pregnant, we weren’t sure,” Estrada said.
That’s when Pets Forever volunteer Char Guertin showed up.
With the mother dog safe and calm, the ladies began to listen for the puppies which they assumed were close by.
Soon, people working inside businesses in the same shopping center, which includes the Desert/Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area office, came out in the 100-degree heat to help.
“Char and a lady from Dr. Rivera’s office went diving into bushes in their plain clothes, but the bushes were super dense and scratchy,” Estrada said. “They couldn’t see or hear the puppies — the traffic was too loud. Char called her husband, Dave, who rushed out from Lucerne Valley.”
When Dave Guertin arrived, he was dressed in work pants, boots and gloves, ready to join the frantic search, Estrada said.
They walked the mother dog over to the bushes, and her reaction led the searchers to believe that’s where her pups were.
“He literally went head-long into the bushes, and minutes later we heard him shouting, ‘I found them,’ ” Estrada said.
Dave Guertin pulled out one pup from the bushes and handed it to his wife, who had a cage ready to go for the newborns.
More people from inside Maxwell’s and other businesses came rushing out, again, to join the recovery mission.
“Dave would pick up a dog, hand it to Char, and then pass it down a literal human chain to get them into safety quickly,” Estrada said. “We did that nine times.”
In total, Estrada said they recovered nine newborn puppies that all were cool and calm, thanks to the mother dog’s instinct to birth them in a shaded and protected spot in the dense bushes.
Tessa Anderson, an Oak Hills resident who owns Pets Forever, said the pups — a mixed boxer breed — were all doing well at just a couple of days old as of Friday afternoon.
Char and Dave Guertin are fostering the pups, making sure they receive their immunizations and remain healthy until they can find them all good homes, Anderson said.
“It was so cool the way everyone pulled together, including Maxwell’s — they brought us iced teas because it was so hot out,” Estrada said. “We were all there for five or six hours and weren’t about to leave those puppies. It’s just a miracle. Saving 10 lives was worth the heat and work.”
For more information on Pets Forever Found, visit their website at www.petsforeverfound.org.
Martial Haprov may be reached at 760-951-6236 or at MHaprov@VVDailyPress.com.
