Maggie, an Australian shepherd, was in her cage when she heard the cries of puppies nearby, according to a Facebook post by Barker’s Pet Motel and Grooming. The family-run business in St. Albert, Alberta often boards rescue dogs when there isn’t enough space for them elsewhere.
Maggie had given up her own babies a couple of weeks earlier and these puppies happened to be without a mother.
BARKER’S PET MOTEL AND GROOMING
When all the humans left the site, Maggie made her move.
“There’s a gate at the front of the kennel,” Alex Aldred, whose family owns the business, told The Dodo. “And there’s a spot where we can just slide in a water bowl. She pushed out her water bowl and wriggled her way through the opening.”
BARKER’S PET MOTEL AND GROOMING
Maggie made her way down the hall until she found the mewling orphans.
Although she couldn’t slip inside the kennel with them, she pressed her body up to the cage as tightly as possible.
BARKER’S PET MOTEL AND GROOMING
It’s okay, I’m here for you. Just three dogs, all of them amid confusing, uncertain circumstances, clinging to each other.
And a surveillance camera capturing the whole thing.
The Aldred family was out for dinner that night. While checking the motel’s security cameras through a phone, they realized a dog had gotten out of a kennel.
Hurrying back from dinner, Sandy Aldred was greeted by a jubilant Maggie.
Together, they went back to the puppies’ kennel. Sandy Aldred opened the cage. And Maggie made herself at home inside.
“She was super affectionate with them,” Alex Aldred said. “She was mouthing them. And they were kissing her chin. So we just decided to keep them together for the night.”
“When we got back in the morning, they were still all snuggled up.”
BARKER’S PET MOTEL AND GROOMING
Although Maggie has found her loving home — she was adopted from the Edmonton Humane Society a week earlier — these puppies, Hannah and Kari could use something a little more forever-ish.
