Rescuer Crawls Under a House — And Finds a Mama Dog Hiding With 9 Puppies
When Adriana Figueroa’s phone buzzed one January morning, she instantly dropped everything. As a rescuer with Women’s Volunteer Miami, she’s used to calls about animals in trouble — but this one felt different.
“I received a text about a female dog who was in rough shape,” Figueroa told The Dodo.
She jumped into her car and drove straight to the caller’s neighborhood, scanning every corner for the dog. It didn’t take long before she spotted a skinny brown pup wandering nervously through a yard.
“I found her pretty quickly,” Figueroa said. “Then I saw her disappear under a house — into a crawl space.”
When Figueroa crouched down to look inside, she froze.
A pair of tiny eyes blinked back at her from the darkness — then another, and another.
The dog, later named Veviana, wasn’t alone. She had a whole litter of puppies hidden in the shadows.
“It broke my heart,” Figueroa said. “She was so thin and exhausted, just trying to keep her babies safe.”
For weeks, Veviana had been surviving on her own, nursing and protecting her puppies in that cold, dusty crawl space. Determined to save them, Figueroa slid her arm under the house and began carefully reaching for each pup.
“She kept moving deeper inside, and the puppies would follow her,” Figueroa said. “It took me three hours to pull out eight puppies.”
When Figueroa finally carried the last puppy out, she promised to come back for their mom.
The next morning, she returned — and Veviana was still there, curled up in the same spot. But this time, she had one more puppy by her side.
As soon as the mama dog heard her babies crying from the car, she stuck her head out and wagged her tail.
“She came right out when she heard them,” Figueroa said. “She knew they were safe.”
Figueroa fostered Veviana and her nine puppies — Tater, Sunshine, Sugar, Spud, Scarlett, Rouge, Poochie, Jerry and Bonnie — until Big Dog Ranch Rescue (BDRR) stepped in to help.
Within weeks, six puppies had already found loving homes.
Now, Veviana and three of her pups are still waiting for their turn — but rescuers know it won’t be long.
“Veviana may be a little shy at first,” BDRR shared on Instagram, “but with love, she’ll open up in no time. She’s spent her days watching over her babies — now she’s ready for a family of her own.”