When Donna Lochmann got a call about a distressed dog in the basement of an abandoned house, she knew she had to check it out immediately. What she didn’t know was that there was an entire little family there waiting for someone to help them.

“As soon as we got out of the car, we could hear multiple babies crying,” Lochmann, chief life saving officer at Stray Rescue of St. Louis, told The Dodo.

Lochmann followed the cries to the basement and found three scared puppies, around 6 weeks old, yelping to be noticed.

At the same time, Lochmann could hear their mom barking from another part of the house. After scooping up the puppies and bringing them to her Jeep, Lochmann set up a trap for their mom. Instead of investigating the trap, though, the scared mama dog ran off.

“We never want to leave mom behind,” Lochmann said. “So I went back a few more times hoping that she would still be in that area.”

On her first two trips back to the house, Lochmann had no luck finding the wandering mama dog. Then, on her third visit, she heard a familiar bark coming from the first floor of the house.

As Lochmann made her way up the stairs from the basement to the first floor, she heard a tiny yelp and looked down to find a fourth tiny puppy at her feet.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Lochmann said. “We searched everywhere the day we were there for the original puppies and didn’t see any more anywhere.”

Lochmann was unsure at first how the puppies were getting into the basement until she got to the landing at the top of the stairs. There, she found a large hole in the floorboards, where the puppies were seemingly falling through.

When she reached the first floor, Lochmann found four more puppies.

“Altogether there were a total of eight puppies including the three we found the first day,” Lochmann said.

Lochmann brought all the puppies to her Jeep and made sure they were safe before going back in to search for their mom. This time, she set a trap inside the house and waited for Mom to check it out.

A little while later, Lochmann went back in to check on the mama dog and found her secured in the trap.

“That day, we got eight puppies total and their mama off the streets,” Lochmann said.

Lochmann brought the mama dog, whom she named Windy Day, and her pups to the shelter for care.

The first three puppies went into foster care with Lochmann, and the remaining five found foster homes shortly after arriving at the shelter. Their mama, Windy Day, is still waiting for a family to scoop her up and love her.

“I’m hoping that somebody will take her soon,” Lochmann said. “She’s super sweet.”

Stray Rescue of St. Louis posted Windy Day on their website in hopes of finding her a loving home. Until then, shelter staff are soaking up all their time with the affectionate mama dog and are grateful that she’ll never be alone and afraid again.