Happy New Year – or rather happy Nova's Year!
Every dog at DogToyStuffz has their personal rescue story but, for us, this one is still hard to believe. After safely partying New Year’s Eve and driving home New Year’s Day at about 2am, my son, out of the corner of his eye, on a pitch dark night, sees a little creature jump from the sidewalk into the street. Not only is the night black but so is this tiniest of creatures. Having stopped our car many times to help so many dogs, cats, turtles, misc fowl creatures from certain death, this night was no different. But this little thing was jet black and unimaginably small. I am amazed my son even saw her on the dark street. She was so tiny, had anyone actually hit her with their car, they would have maybe thought they hit a rock. She would have looked like an oil spill and no more!
My son scooped her up without question and brought her straight home. We gave her some water and she seemed so totally happy to just have some warmth and attention. He named her Nova – after his car and the fact that she was found on New Year’s – Nova means “new” in Latin. We took a picture (pictured above with my son) her first night but you can barely see her details because she is so completely black. We tried to guess at her breed – maybe Matlese, maybe Cocker Spaniel, maybe Scottie or Westie… maybe a mix!
The next day was a holiday weekend and all our local vets were closed. As we always do, we checked the newspapers, shelters and various lost animal online listings and no one had called and asked about a little black pup. It wasn’t until Monday that I was able to connect with the vets. No one had reported any black puppy missing, so, the next day I took this little thing to our vet (whom I love – he’s such a great guy, kind, caring and only doing it for the animal’s well-being). Amazingly, at apparently only 6 weeks old, little Nova checked out nicely. He could hear a slight heart murmur, but at this very young age it can be normal to have a little hole in the heart – that is part of how momma helps baby breathe while she’s in her stomach. But we will watch!
Little Nova only weighed 1.4 lbs. I still can’t believe how tiny she is. In the picture below she looks like a little black smudge between Sydney, 65 lbs, and Zeus, 110 lbs.
So, with this little thing, we have already had trouble finding fun dog or puppy toys safe enough and tiny enough for her to play with so… we’ll add those here for you soon.
Welcome Nova to the family at DogToyStuffz!