Luna the dog adopts a litter of five puppies

(FOX 9) - Five newborn puppies have a chance at life thanks to a dog named Luna.

A week ago, Luna gave birth to two little boy puppies.  But another dog had a litter of five girls but the metro family that had them gave them away the day they were born.

Luckily, the dog rescue "The Rescue Network," stepped in and thought Luna might adopt them as her own.  Lauren Byrd is fostering Luna and the puppies and she said, "She immediately started cleaning up after them and we knew from that exact moment she was going to take them on as her own and so we set them in her pen and she laid down and they started feeding them."

Byrd says this likely saved the girls’ lives as puppies without moms only have a 25% survival rate.

Luna is now carrying for five more puppies. (FOX 9)

The Byrds recently went to Italy which is how the seven ended up with their names; Ravioli, Rigatoni, Bucatini, Orzo, Ziti, Trofie, and Risotto.  The puppies are only a week old right now, about one pound, and don’t even have their eyes open yet.  But at eight weeks, they’ll all be ready for their forever homes, with families that will pick up where Luna left off.

"We know we can’t save them all but if we can make a small dent in the lives saved and frankly helping other people build out their families that’s why we do it," Byrd says.

"The Rescue Network" is a dog rescue that works to find homes for dogs wandering on the reservations.

Luna was one of them and came to the Byrd family pregnant.  She had a challenging delivery and had to deliver one of her two via C-section which ended up costing $3,000.

If you’d like to donate to the rescue or foster you can go to rescuenetworkmn.org or find them on Facebook under Rescue Network.