If you took one of these dogs home, this page is yours. These photos are the first chapter of a story you are still writing.
The Brooklyn 99 litter was born Monday, March 2, 2026. Momma is Lucy — a DDR Gigante German Shepherd with nerve and devotion that does not ask permission. Dad is an American working-line male: tall, lanky, sharp-minded, and people-forward in a way that still makes me grin.
Labor started long, but it started normal. She was an older female having her first litter at five. I knew better. I also knew she was too good to pass up. She was a trooper. She gave us two beautiful girls before the catastrophe hit. We put those girls on a heating pad and rushed mom to the ER.
We were lucky. We lost no puppies. We almost lost mom. She had a massive drug reaction — if you have one of her puppies, be careful with that. They may need lower doses than the vet first thinks. The epidural left her blind. The clinic wanted to keep her. After twenty-four hours, my husband and I refused. We brought her home to sounds and smells she knew. A human sat with her around the clock for the first two weeks. The blindness was temporary. The inability to stand was the drugs. We stopped them, and within forty-eight hours she was herself again.
That was not the end of it. We bottle-fed a lot, and we helped her nurse. By three weeks an infection pulled her off the puppies. It was not a choice she was happy with. Watson — Lucy's cousin, and my service dog — stepped in as the adult in the pen when Lucy could only visit in short, watched windows. To this day she still cares for them and protects them, even the boys, who are bigger than she is now.
Six souls. Three girls, three boys. We named them after Brooklyn Nine-Nine because this house has always named animals after the stories we love, and six pups lined up like fate with a sense of humor.
Rosa. Amy. Gina. Jake. Charles. Terry.
Four of them went home with you. Charles stayed here in training. Terry stayed too — my Terry-bear. I will keep their pictures here so you can look back whenever you need to remember how small they started, and how hard they had to fight just to arrive.
The photos below run from the beginning forward.
Strength stands watch.