Rescuer follows stray dog to pile of trash and finds the littlest babies inside

Zully Vasquez Ventura had a hunch when she spotted an adorable wonky-eared dog on the side of the road.

Seeing a dog wandering the streets alone wasn’t unusual for Ventura.

Since moving to Cleveland, Texas, a few years ago, she's helped save more than 5,000 dogs in her community of Colony Ridge. Ventura regularly drives around, feeding the high number of stray and neglected animals, and networks with rescues.

But when Ventura got a closer look at the dog on the road, she could tell the pup had recently given birth.

“I saw that her breasts were full of milk,” Ventura told The Dodo. “I fed her, and she just sat there. I asked her, ‘Where are the puppies?’ But she would not move or show me.”

Ventura faced a dilemma: Should she risk moving the dog somewhere safe, potentially leaving the puppies behind? Or had something happened to the pups, and now this mother dog was on her own and in need of help?

Ventura decided to wait before making any rash decisions and returned the next day. “I fed her, and I kept saying, ‘Show me the puppies,’ but she didn’t budge,” Ventura said.

After a couple days of this, Ventura decided to use her pet detective skills and set up surveillance.

“I watched the area where I fed her, and I saw she was coming out of the woods,” Ventura said. “I walked toward her and said, ‘You have the puppies in the woods?’”

At that point, a rainstorm was about to roll in, and Ventura knew she had a narrow window of time to try to find the puppies.

Ventura walked into the woods and searched for more than an hour. “I tried to listen for any sound, I looked for every sign, and nothing,” she said.

The dog stayed with Ventura the entire time, but instead of leading her to puppies, she barked at Ventura. “The mother dog didn't want me to go that way,” she said.

As Ventura walked out of the woods, the glimmer of a glass fishbowl caught her eye, and she heard a sound.

“I heard puppies cry,” Ventura said.

But where exactly were they in all the garbage littering the roadside?

After a desperate search, Ventura spotted the puppies in a box near the fishbowl, under a pile of bedding and bubble wrap. “The entire time, they were in the trash along the road I drive down,” Ventura said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was in disbelief, but I was so grateful.”

Ventura thinks the mother dog was trying to lure her away from her puppies to protect them, and the dog may have actually been near the pups, hiding in another box, at times when Ventura drove by.

“The mother dog could blend in perfectly with the trash and the puppies,” Ventura said. “You couldn’t really see the puppies from the outside, but once I removed the bedding and bubble wrap, I could see them.”

Ventura ran to her car to get a towel to carry the three puppies to safety. “I started saying to the mom, ‘Let’s go,’ and she went to hide in the box. That really broke me, like she thought she was part of the trash.”

But once Ventura had the puppies, the mother dog followed and jumped into the car.

Ventura networked with Three Little Pitties Rescue, which took in the family. Sadly, one of the puppies passed away. But the mother dog, now named River, and her litter were all adopted.

Though Ventura has helped thousands of dogs she's seen on the side of the road, she's so thankful she followed her hunch, because a whole family who needed her just happened to be hiding in plain sight.

"Something in my heart told me she had puppies," Ventura said. "I was so determined to help."