Donna, of Stray Rescue of St. Louis, has a lot of experience under her belt when it comes to saving animals in need.

However, she still gets some cases where she needs to be patient in order to get the animal to safety, and this was exactly one of those cases.

Rescue Mission

Donna spotted a mama dog wandering around abandoned houses even when she was still pregnant.

Knowing that she was due soon, Donna went in and put traps around the houses, hoping that the mama dog lived in one of them and would safely get caught.

Considering that it was a really cold time of the year, Donna and her team hoped that they would catch the pup soon, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

After not catching her for a while, they knew that she had to give birth in one of the houses, so they started investigating.

The rescuers were relieved when they spotted the dog in one of the windows, knowing that the puppies were in there, too, ready to be rescued.

However, they quickly realized that they could use her puppies instead of food in order to lure her into the trap.

They set up the trap, placed the two pups inside, and waited for the mama to come back.

Unfortunately, their plan didn’t go as they wanted.

“We left for, I don’t know, it seemed like forever to us, and came back and – absolutely nothing. So, she still was not even motivated enough to go into the trap for her puppies,” said Donna.

Even though they were heartbroken because they had to leave the puppies in the cold again, they knew they were doing the right thing.

They also decided to leave some food and water, along with some cameras, so that they could keep an eye out for the mom.

Change Of Plan

After seeing that not only the mom came in to take care of the pups, but the dad, too, Donna knew that they had to come up with a better plan in order to save this little family.

Since the frightened dogs knew that the rescuers were coming often, they started to listen to the sound of their car, so that they could run away and hide.

We even went back on a day when it was sleeting, thinking that the sleet and the wetness of the ground would prevent her from hearing us come and it still didn’t work.

Donna then came up with a plan to make the whole house a trap.

They boarded up any exits that the dogs could get out of and put up a door with a rope attached to it that they would pull to close the door.

Thanks to the camera they put up, they found out that the dog’s parents were inside around seven in the morning, so the rescue team got up early and headed to the house.

I went back around front again and got to the rope, pulled the rope, and they started barking. So, we knew that we finally had them in the house.

When they got inside, they found the two dogs hiding in the bathtub, shivering in fear.

They carefully got them out of the house and into their car. They came back for their two babies who were more than happy to see the rescuers again.

The puppies were pretty social because we’ve been handling them since they were about a week old.  

New Life

Even though they were in a warmer environment, mom and dad were still really scared. It was clear that they hadn’t had any contact with humans before.

However, Donna and her team at Stray Rescue of St. Louis were determined to show this little family that hoomans mean no harm!

After they build up their confidence, the team hopes to find a loving forever home that this little family truly deserves.

However long it takes we will make sure that they get the right home eventually and won’t have to live scared on the street anymore