Eight pups separated from mom were lost in the woods. So Florida crews got creative
Eight puppies separated from their mom were nowhere to be found — then deputies got creative in the Florida woods.
“They had puppy sounds on a cellphone,” Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said in a video posted to Facebook on Jan. 13. “So everybody got real quiet, and they started playing the puppy sounds. And the puppies did exactly what they do all the time. They started whining, and we were able to find all of them.”
Then, the mama dog and her pups were reunited. The “gentle” yet “exhausted” mom was seen nursing in the video, which shows the family spending precious moments together.
The heartwarming rescue unfolded after an animal advocate spotted an abandoned dog in the woods near Mims, a roughly 45-mile drive northeast from Orlando. The dog was caught before deputies learned she had given birth to puppies.
Then, the sheriff’s office said it went back to look for the pups. But when crews had trouble finding the little ones, they turned to technology for help.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our team,” Ivey said. “The thought process to play puppy sounds on a phone — I can promise you I’d have never thought of that.”
The animal advocate has claimed the mama dog, who wasn’t named in the video. She will receive heartworm treatment and may have a snaggle tooth removed, Dr. Sarah Boyd, lead veterinarian for the sheriff’s office, said in the video.
Meanwhile, deputies said an animal organization in Titusville will handle the puppies’ adoptions. McClatchy News reached out to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Brevard and is awaiting additional information.
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 10:24 AM.
