When Donna Lochmann got a call about a distressed dog in the basement of an abandoned house, she knew she had to check it out right away. What she didn’t know was that there was a whole little family out there waiting for someone to help them.
Lochmann, chief lifesaving officer at Stray Rescue in St. Louis, told The Dodo, “We heard multiple babies crying as soon as we got out of the car.”
Lochman followed the cries to the basement to find three frightened puppies, about 6 weeks old, screaming for attention.
Meanwhile, Lochmann could hear their mother barking from another part of the house. After picking up the puppies and taking them to her jeep, Lochmann set a trap for their mother. While the terrified mama dog ran away, the trap was not investigated.
“We never want to leave mom behind,” Lochman said. “So I went back a few more times and hoped she was still in the area.”
On her previous two trips home, Lochman failed to find the stray mother dog. Then on her third visit, she heard familiar barking sounds from the first floor of the house.
As Lochman ascended the stairs from the basement to the first floor, she heard a faint bark and looked down to find a fourth puppy at her feet.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Lochman said. “The day we were there we looked everywhere for the original pup but couldn’t see it anywhere.”
Lochman wasn’t sure how the puppy got into the basement at first, until she reached the landing at the top of the stairs. There, she discovered a large hole in the floor through which the puppy appeared to have fallen.
When she reached the ground floor, Lochman found four more puppies.
“There were eight puppies in total, including the three we found on the first day,” Lochmann said.
Lochmann took all the puppies to her jeep, made sure they were safe, and went back to find their mother. This time she set a trap in the house and waited for her mother to investigate.
After a while, Lochman went back to check on the mother dog and found her trapped in the trap.
“We had a total of eight puppies and their moms off the street that day,” Lochman said.
Lochmann brought the mother dog, whom she named Windy Day, and her pup to the shelter for care.
The first three puppies were fostered by Lochmann, and the remaining five found foster families shortly after arriving at the shelter. Their mom, Windy Day, is still waiting for a family to pick her up and love her.
“I hope someone will take her soon,” Lochman said. “She’s super cute.”
Stray Rescue of St. Louis posted Windy Day on their website in hopes of finding her a loving home. Until then, the shelter staff will spend all their time with the affectionate mama dog and are grateful that she will never be alone and scared again.