ST. LOUIS — A litter of 10 puppies and their mom are safe and out of the brutal heat after rescuers with Stray Rescue of St. Louis pulled them out of a drainage pipe behind a south city warehouse on Friday.
Stray Rescue posted videos of the rescue and its aftermath to its Instagram page.
"It is unbelievably HOT out here - we're not leaving until we have all 10," the group wrote under its first video.
The puppies could be seen hiding deep in the pipe, terrified of the people who were trying to rescue them.
It took a couple of hours, but the group managed to rescue all 10 of the scared, overheated puppies.
They were taken to the shelter, where they're now being well taken care of in the air conditioning.
The puppies were all given heat-related names: Hot Tamale, Hot Potato, Hot Toddy, Hot Pocket, Hot Chocolate, Hot Air Balloon, Hot Topic, Hot Pepper, Hot Box Cookie... and the puppy that was the hardest to rescue was named Hot Damn.
Workers were able to rescue the mother later in the evening, and they've named her Hot Mama.