NATION NOW

What happens when puppies crash a bachelor party?

Natalie Neysa Alund
Tennessean
In this Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016 photo, from left, Jake Rowe holding Knox, Joe Gruber holding Bear, Alex Manchester holding Rosie, Doug Craddock with Annie, Mitchel Craddock holding Brimmie, Brent Witters holding Finn and Dexter Jennings holding Gunner pose for a photo in Vicksburg, Mich. It all started the morning of Mitchel Craddock's 5-day bachelor getaway, a four-wheeling trip to Tennessee arranged by the Best Man in Craddock's Oct. 8 wedding. Friends of Mitchel Craddock, the bridegroom-to-be, each came home from his bash with a puppy. (Bryan Bennett/Kalamazoo Gazette-MLive Media Group via AP)

NASHVILLE -- Some men return from bachelor parties with secrets.

But eight men from Michigan who attended a bachelor party in Tennessee had no choice but to be honest about the female who crashed their party.

Vicksburg resident Mitchel Craddock said he and seven friends were on a five-day, four-wheeling party in the woods near Huntsville, Tenn., last month when a skinny, flea-bitten dog approached their cabin door.

"My buddy was cooking bacon, burning it so we had the door to the cabin open," recalled Alex Manchester. "Next thing, we look over and she's just standing there. We couldn't get her to come inside. She was just watching us as we ate breakfast with the door open."

The dog wouldn't come inside, but scarfed down the leftover breakfast the men gave her.

Eventually they began petting her.

"It took a few minutes for her to gain our trust but from then on she was our best friend," Craddock said.

The dog, he said, was malnourished and the group could tell she recently had pups because her nipples were out, but they weren't producing milk.

So the men ventured out on a mission to find the litter.

Down a dirt road from the cabin, they found her seven puppies in a den protected by briers.

"We could hear them whimpering," Manchester recalled. "Mama showed up and was actually helping us get the dogs out. One by one we grabbed them and handed them out."

Craddock says the puppies looked like they were 5- to 6-weeks old and were very healthy.

The eight men knew they couldn’t leave the dog and her pups abandoned in the hills of East Tennessee.

"You think of a bachelor party, and that's the last thing you think of. Eight guys go down to go four wheeling and come back with eight dogs," Craddock said.

Craddock's grandparents took the mother, now named Little Orphan Annie, and one of her pups.

Manchester named his dog Rosey because she was found in the brier patch.

Brimmie was named for Brimestone, the recreational park nearby where the men had camped. Knox after Knoxville, since the city was so close.

Gunner's new dad is a hunter. Finn's dad is a fisherman. Daisy is all white, like the flower, and Bear, well, he resembles a bear.

As far as the 23-year-old bachelor Craddock, he and his bride, Kristen Olson, 23, married on Oct. 8.

The night before their nuptials, Craddock said he and his friends brought the dogs to the wedding rehearsal dinner.

"They were all playing together and glad to see each other," Craddock said. "I'm sure they'll be life-long buddies. Just like all of us."

Follow @nataliealund on Twitter.