A little overwhelmed

[Cariboo2]

I am technically not new to the forum. I was posting earlier this year about my dog Frenchy, who had a nasal infection that didn't respond to antibiotics. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to him, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

We live on a ranch (this is cattle country) and have a senior Jack Russell, but wanted to get another large breed dog as soon as possible. We didn't want to get a puppy, so we adopted an almost one year old Bouvier X Black Lab/Border Collie who we thought would fit in well. She's a little shy, but we are confident she will be happy with us.

We were told that she had recently been in heat and our vet said it would be months before she would go into heat again, so were going to let her get a little older and more comfortable on the leash before we took her in to get spayed. Unbeknownst to us (and the previous owner), our young female was already pregnant. She had run off from her owner's ranch the first day we went to pick her up, so we had to go back another day to get her. Turns out the day she had run off was exactly 63 days to when her puppies were born.

We had no intention of breeding her and didn't want a puppy in the first place, but now we have six 5-week-old puppies, and they're a handful! We decided to keep one of them, but that means we need to find good homes for 5 of them and other than putting signs up at local stores and an ad on Kijiji, does anyone have any recommendations? It's been years since I've had to care for even one puppy, and I am feeling quite overwhelmed.

It's not the puppies' fault that we don't know who their father is, and I'd hate to think no one will want them because of that. We tried to give them to the previous owner once they're weaned, but she doesn't want to take them. We'd hoped some friends would take a couple, but so far no luck. Someone did tell us not to advertise them as free, for the puppies' sake. Of course, I am getting very attached to all of them and want them to go to forever homes. Any advice would be appreciated.