9 two-week-old puppies found abandoned in bucket on New Jersey road

A litter of two-week old puppies was crammed into a bucket and abandoned alongside a road in Union County, New Jersey on Thursday, police said.

The nine puppies were found inside a five-gallon bucket that had been left near Raritan Road and Frances Drive, according to a Facebook post from the Clark Township Police Department.

The newborn pups were brought to the police station and then taken to the Associated Humane Society, cops said.

“The Clark Police Department found them about 4:00 [p.m.] so who knows how long they were out there during the day,” Danielle Mania of the Associated Humane Societies told ABC7.

“A good Samaritan mentioned they saw the bucket on the street and saw the bucket was moving so the puppies were probably squirming a bit and that’s when they called the police department.”

One puppy died but the others are being taken care of by the shelter’s veterinary team, according to the report. 

The whereabouts of the puppies’ mother is unknown.

“I know, our heart breaks for mom, we don’t know, did mom pass away? What happened to her? Was she not nursing well enough? To just leave puppies in a bucket on a street is insane, especially with the severe cold we’ve been facing in New Jersey,” Mania told the outlet.