March 4 (UPI) — A litter of puppies that were found stranded underneath a portable classroom in California were reunited with their mother.
The Monterey County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals rescued the puppies when students and teachers at Gavilan View Middle School reported hearing crying sounds underneath the classroom for at least two days following a school holiday.
A custodian and a teacher investigated the sounds by digging underneath the classroom, where they found five two-week-old puppies.
Two of the puppies were found dead but the three survivors were pulled out from underneath the classroom and taken to an SPCA shelter.
“The three tiny puppies, now named Gilligan, Skipper, and Mary Ann, were just two weeks old, cold, and dehydrated,” the SPCA said in a news release. “They spent their first night with the SPCA in the care of a dedicated foster who bottle fed them and kept them warm.”
Staff soon realized that a lactating female dog had been picked up at the same location five days earlier and sent to a different shelter.
The female dog was brought to the puppies and immediately brought them into her care and began nursing them, which seemed to indicate a match.
“While it’s possible they have a different mother, we don’t know where she is,” the SPCA said. “The school has not seen another lactating dog on campus and no dog has tried to come back to find the puppies.”
