By Sam Richards
East Bay Times
BAY POINT, Calif. — When Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputies ran across a litter of puppies that needed veterinary attention and, ultimately, good homes, they knew who to call. It was someone they knew well.
Deputies and volunteers from a Martinez-based animal group teamed up to rescue a number of puppies from a homeless encampment in Bay Point, and are searching for homes for most of them.
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According to posts on the Facebook pages of the Sheriff’s Department and of First Responders Animal ResQ, deputies were responding to a report of a an unrelated matter (a reported stabbing, said Sheriff’s spokesman Jimmy Lee) on Thursday when they came across a homeless encampment, where a man was living with five puppies. Sheriff’s Sgt. Debra Williams said she went back the next day and found the man and the puppies.
All the pups were infested with worms, fleas and ticks, Williams said. The younger four, only four weeks old, were unable to nurse and were becoming malnourished and dehydrated.
“Someone had to bottle-feed them and get them used to feeding; their mother wasn’t nursing them,” Williams said this week.
Williams called First Responders Animal ResQ, headed up along with Nicole Loyd by Alex Clark, herself a Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy. Clark, who said she has worked with other rescue groups before on her off time, formed ResQ in March with some other volunteers she had worked with.
Clark’s fellow deputies “know I’m somebody that could get them help for these puppies, and called me,” she said. Typically, she added, she keeps the rescue work separate from the law enforcement work.
The pups got basic medical attention, and will be spayed and neutered. “They’ll all get great homes,” Clark said.
The homeless man, who had wanted to keep one of the pups, eventually allowed all five to be taken to be nursed back to health and checked by a vet. Sheriff’s deputies adopted two of the pups themselves; one of them subsequently died, Williams said.
As for the younger pups’ mother, a black lab named “Blackey,” a ResQ volunteer temporarily housed her and had her spayed. She was returned to the man at his camp a few days later after she recovered from surgery.
The man was skeptical about getting Blackey back, Clark said, “but he was great about wanting the best for his dogs. He clearly loved the dogs; why would I take a dog from someone who obviously loves her?”
Meanwhile, three of the four-week-olds and the older pup, about nine weeks old, are being nursed back to health at Williams’ home, being looked after by her and her family, in what she hopes is a temporary stop on their way to “forever homes.”
“I feel elated that these (pups) are going to get longer, better lives,” Williams said. “But we’ve got a German shepherd, Leia, and she’s enough for us to handle.”
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©2017 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)