Dog rescued from Lytton wildfire welcomes new litter of puppies nearly 1 year later

Nearly a year after the majority of Lytton was burnt to the ground by an out-of-control wildfire, a family continues to rebuild and grow. Tricia Thorpe’s property just outside the village of Lytton was completely destroyed last summer, including the family home and barn. Along with the structures on the property and priceless family belongings, the family’s animals were also affected by the fire.

Thorpe and her husband Don lost sheep, goats, chickens, peacocks, as well as a Great Pyrenees, and two puppies belonging to a recent litter. However, several animals, including the rest of that litter and the female dog named Sunshine, were rescued. An image of an exhausted Sunshine and her pups with rescuers was shared widely online, with many applauding rescue efforts to save the animals that were left behind.

Almost a year after that devastation, Thorpe says Sunshine welcomed a new litter of ten puppies early Tuesday morning. “It was pretty incredible to see that. All arrived relatively safely, and Mom is absolutely thrilled,” Thorpe says.

“She’s doing good. She’s very pleased with herself. The only thing is she caught us enough by surprise that I didn’t have vanilla ice cream for her as a treat, so she had to have vanilla yogurt.

” Heartwarming scene in Lytton, where firefighters found some of the animals that survived the fire. Jamie Von S writes this one property had adult dogs, and 7 puppies – all of them are OK, given clean water, puppy chow. Sheep and alpaca at the site also fine.

@NEWS1130 pic. twitter. com/YcxW6BVuf7 — Tarnjit Kaur Parmar (@Tarnjitkparmar) July 4, 2021 Sunshine lost two of her puppies in the Lytton wildfire, and her mate, a Great Pyrenees named Thunder, died en route to Kamloops following the fire.

“He hung on until we got there and rescued them. He held on until we got there but he died of smoke inhalation and stress on route to Kamloops,” she says. “That part got us because we thought we had them.

We were so happy. We were laughing in the car and almost in tears of joy. Then we got to Kamloops.

” Since Thunder’s death, the family had been left reeling and reached out to the person responsible for breeding Thunder in the hopes of bringing another dog into their home. “We had absolutely loved Thunder and asked her if she was going to have a litter and she wasn’t planning on breeding the dogs again because the dad was like 10 years old. “But they’d had an accidental litter at the end of July.

That’s where Lightning came from,” she says. “The miraculous part of that is he looks a lot like Thunder. He was gifted to us and he’s Thunder’s full baby brother.

” RELATED STORIES: ‘I couldn’t stop crying’: Lytton wildfire survivor relieved firefighters located her pets alive and well Little left of wildfire-ravaged Lytton as letter details ‘heartbreaking’ aftermath Lytton evacuees to be reunited with animals after BC SPCA search community Lightning fathered the newest litter, with three of those puppies now named Olivia, Chad, and Jamie in honour of the rescuers involved in saving animals from the village last summer. “We decided to name three of the puppies after those firefighters. We’re all friends on Facebook.

So I reached out to them this morning and said hey, you know this is what we’re going to do, ‘please come visit them. ’ So they’ve all promised they’ll come and visit their namesake. ” Sunshine welcomed 10 puppies.

3 will be named after Olivia, Chad & Jamie, the ones who saved her from Lytton. The pup’s dad is Lightning – the younger brother of Thunder! Tricia Thorpe says despite hardships of the last year, these moments are what she holds on to. @CityNewsVAN https://t.

co/f37PV8ul92 pic. twitter. com/ixsmfzblML — Tarnjit Kaur Parmar (@Tarnjitkparmar) June 15, 2022 She says even though the last year has been incredibly difficult for the family and the community, it’s these moments that she chooses to focus on.

“I prefer to use those moments to stir up the positives rather than the negatives because it’ll bury us. All you think about are the negative things that happened. I want to focus on Olivia and Chad and Jamie coming in here and telling us the dogs were okay,” she says.

“People like that are the bright points. Negatives … there’s just been far too many, of course, far too much frustration over things not happening. And so you have to grasp these little bright lights and cling to them.

”.