A day in the life of a pregnant, homeless dog; desperately relying on people, feeding street dogs.

Hello Path of Hope Rescue friends, my name is Sheila and I am one of the creative content writers here at PHR. I love bringing these amazing dogs into your homes through their stories in the hopes of finding their furever homes. You hear us talk about our Texas transport goals, how amazing a full roster of fosters would be and why we chose Texas.

Today, I wanted to bring you a different perspective. I thought we would take a minute to reflect on what it would be like to live a day in the life of a Texas street dog.

A pregnant mama street dog with brown white fur standing up looking to her right for food when the volunteer feeder is putting down treats — A pregnant mama dog on the street of Texas, waiting for help (Path of Hope Facebook)

Meet… "no name"

Hi there, I would introduce myself but I was never given a name. I’m a homeless dog that has big hopes that someday, someone will love me and someday I can give love back.I pretty much spend most of my day roaming around looking for food (that’s not an easy task). Sometimes there are people out feeding street dogs like myself, so I hope that I can get there before another dog does, and if I don’t…I sure hope they’ll share. I do my best to make sure I have enough but that doesn’t always happen. Finding a safe place to sleep, have my babies and care for them once they are here is so hard.

I’m so tired..

Right now I’m pretty pregnant with yet another bunch of babies and that takes a lot out of me. Winter is around the corner and the temps are lowering, so I need to find a place to give birth where my babies will be warm and not succumb to the cold. You see this will be my second litter of puppies this year and at 2 years old this will be my 4th litter. If I’m resilient I might live for another 3 years and that has the possibility of 6 more litters. It’s really hard work! That could be 6-10 (on average) mouths to feed each time. I’ve already had 34 puppies in my lifetime, but I’ve lost so many. The majority of times, many of my puppies die at birth or shortly after. I’m just not able to properly care for them and myself at the same time. I’m thankful for those feeding street dogs, so I can fill up and then feed my babies.

Why don’t we go to a shelter for stray dogs? Well, they are full and they have a max stay limit and most times that is not long enough to find someone to take us home. Rescues can’t take us if they don’t have fosters to help care for us until we can find our furever families. It’s a problem that most rescues have. If only someone would foster me and give me a nice warm bed, I bet I could save my family.

Thanks for letting me tell my story but it looks like these puppies decided today was the day they wanted to come into the world, so I’m just going to lay down in the dirt and hope for someone to come rescue us.

-"no name".

A volunteer helps feeding street dogs and puppies on the street of Texas in a local park next to a house with brown white fur stray dogs — A normal routine of our dog-feeding volunteers (Path of Hope Facebook)

It’s hard to imagine, but there are between 500 and 700 thousand unleashed street dogs freely roaming Houston, Texas. Most are neither spayed nor neutered. Many are abandoned, and few have a human family that care for them. Finding a meal is hit or miss, at best, and sometimes these homeless dogs have to fight for what little they can find. There is some promising news, though. A volunteer group of “street feeders” have emerged and their main goal is feeding street dogs. They work a specific route and the dogs learn to wait for them. The food is spread out on the ground because if there were bowls, the homeless dogs would be more inclined to fight for the food.

A volunteer street dog feeder from Path of Hope Rescue feeding stray dogs and puppies in Houston Texas in a park with trees grasses — One of our Volunteers feeding the street dogs. Look at how Hungry they are! (Path of Hope Facebook)

Hunger and starvation are only part of the challenge for homeless dogs. There’s very little shelter from the scorching sun of summer or the bone-penetrating grip of winter’s cold. This is especially dangerous for stray puppies born or abandoned on the streets. Puppies need warmth and mother’s milk to be able to thrive. If Momma isn’t with them, or is too underfed to nurse, they are at great risk. If the weather turns bad, all bets are off.

And, in a big city like Houston, roadways and highways criss-cross the landscape, so it is inevitable that dogs will encounter moving cars, trucks and buses. And the outcome is often disastrous.

Picture of a black white bicolor little street puppy walking on concrete road next to green tree forest in Texas looking for food water — You can find unleashed street dogs almost anywhere in Houston, Texas (Path of Hope Facebook)

The area’s approximate 35 animal shelters do the best that they can, but with the sheer numbers of stray dogs, they are completely overcrowded. The cost of housing and feeding so many means that sometimes the shelters are without electricity, running water, food or supplies to provide even minimal care. The result, sadly, is that hundreds of innocent dogs are euthanized each day. Stray puppies and mothers require the most shelter resources, and for this reason, they are often the first to be euthanized. That is why transporting these homeless dogs to the safety of foster homes is the focus of Path of Hope Rescue’s mission.