| Bertha's Page |
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| Bertha The Bull Dog |
| Bertha was laid to rest July 15, 2006 We will miss her terribly!! Here is her story Bertha the bulldog helps a family of orphans Bertha, a white bulldog with brindle patches and the classic under bite of her breed, knows what it is like to be all alone in the world. She was picked up by a dog catcher when she was found wandering the streets of Schenectady. She spent about two weeks at Emerald Acres, a shelter in Rotterdam, but her owner never came to claim her. She was rescued by Sherri Crouse, the director of the Amsterdam-based Animal Outreach and Rescue. Crouse said she had originally taken the dog with the idea of finding her a home, but she fell in love with her and decided to make her her own. "I've always been fond of bulldogs," she said. "This dog took to me the moment she came home." Little did Crouse know, when the dog settled into the corner of her living room, that she was carrying a secret - as a matter of fact she was carrying 10 little secrets. The dog Crouse thought was a little overweight was actually expecting a litter of puppies. "She was stocky, but bulldogs are basically stocky anyway," she said. "That was a surprise." All wouldn't go well for Bertha's puppies, though. The first one was born at 10:30 Friday night. The second came an hour later. But then, although Bertha continued to labor, no puppies were born. By 5 a.m. Saturday, the dog couldn't even move out of her crate. Something was wrong. Crouse began to call area vets. "Half were gone and the others said straight out that they wanted cash at the door," she said. Most wanted close to $1,000 before they would even look at the dog. Finally Dr. James Smith of Galway Animal Hospital agreed to help her. Crouse's grandmother, Louise Muscato, agreed to foot the bill. By then, Bertha's uterus had ruptured. Nothing could be done to save the remaining eight puppies. Bertha's stomach lining was infected and attention was turned to saving her life. She spent two days in the hospital and racked up close to $1,000 in medical bills, all the while allowing her remaining two puppies to nurse. When she came back home, the stocky dog was weak and thin but still mothering her tiny puppies. At about the same time as Bertha was fighting for her life, a pit bull in Schenectady was giving birth to her own litter of seven puppies. The pit bull was living in a vacant second floor apartment with her homeless owner. The owner of the apartment building enlisted the assistance of police to evict the homeless man. The landlord was reportedly attacked at the front of the building by the pit bull mother. One of the officers shot and wounded her. Police entered the building to check the upstairs apartment and the pitbull mother reportedly charged. The officers shot her again, this time killing her. When police got upstairs they found seven puppies, less than a week old. The orphaned puppies were taken to Emerald Acres - the same place Bertha had waited in vain for her owners. The shelter called Crouse for help. Crouse picked them up and took them to her home where she intended to bottle feed them with a bucket of formula Adirondack Feed had donated to help out. She believed that Bertha was far too ill to be bothered with a whole new litter of puppies. Before Crouse could make up a bed for the puppies she had to do something about the fleas that infested their tiny bodies. She bathed them in special shampoo to kill the parasites but the puppies protested loudly. She put each one into a cardboard box after they were done with their bath but they didn't want to settle down. "They were screaming from being wet," she said. It was their noise that attracted Bertha's attention. Bertha left her own two puppies and walked over the box to investigate. She nuzzled the puppies. "It was almost like she was counting them. She was nosing each one of them," Crouse said. Crouse went back to her bathing project but she noticed the box was getting emptier. "Bertha kept taking them," she said. The bulldog carried each of the seven pit bull puppies to her crate where she placed them with her own. She then proceeded to nurse them right along with her own family. Although Crouse is supplementing the puppies' diets with the formula, Bertha seems to be doing a fine job of keeping them full and content. Crouse estimated that the puppies will be ready to go to new adoptive homes by the second week of September. "The phone's already been ringing off the hook for the puppies," she said. "We're going to do like our regular adoptions. We'll do home visits and they have to agree to have them spayed or neutered." She said she'll have to be especially careful, though, because pit bulls seem to attract trouble. They are frequently trained to fight and that's not the life she wants for them. |
