Sad Day for Rescue
Filed Under (rescue) by Marie on Mar 26, 2009 10:25 pm
This day has been a long time in coming, sadly. We have a “rescue/sanctuary” (that I will leave unnamed) in our area that was started by a very well intentioned, intelligent, caring person. However, in the last couple of years her good intentions have outweighed her reasonableness. As a result, she has taken in far more animals than she can care for properly.
Our all breed rescue has tried helping her take dogs to adoption events, only to have her take in more dogs than she adopted out. Ugh!!! The local shelter even got to the point that they quit allowing her transfer animals out into her program. Unfortunately, nothing has helped. When she couldn’t transfer them out into her program she would volunteer to transport them to other rescues, and then not deliver all of them. Incredible! It just absolutely must be like an addiction. That’s the only way it makes sense to me.
Finally, (not because she realized she was in over her head), but because the “rescue/sanctuary” was in violation of our kennel licensing laws, and because of the conditions the animals were in, the dogs were being taken to the shelter today. The animal control officer we spoke to today told us that they even found the bodies of a couple dogs that has died in the last few weeks!
The really frustrating thing is that even at this point, she seems to be in denial about the situation that she has put these dogs in. She even called the person in charge of adoptions with our rescue and asked her to get some of the dogs out and let her have them back! The answer is NO WAY!
The shelter took in about 16 dogs today. Unfortunately, while that would be plenty, in reality it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The low estimate of dogs she had in her care was around 50, so we’re missing a quite a few at this point! We know that animal control left 3 that she claims as her own personal pets, and 6 more that she says her daughter will pick up and take to the Salt Lake area in the morning. That’s still only got us to 25. We know for sure that she has moved a quite a number of the smaller breed dogs to some friend’s houses. How animal control will deal with that, I don’t know. They said that at this point, they are just going to keep a very close eye on her. I don’t know how successful that will be!
Anyway, it’s just a sad day for rescue in our area. I really wish this situation could have had a different ending. 
That is such a sad story – you’re right – it must’ve developed into an addiction for the woman. Poor dogs but poor woman also….I hope they can save the missing 25 dogs too.
I think there is a disease, can’t remember the name, where people start hoarding animals and don’t realize when conditions are bad for the animals in their care. She’s mentally ill and needs help for herself as well, but she won’t recognize that. Does she have family? Like adult kids?
Dawns last blog post..Extraordinarily ordinary
Me too Ricky! Otherwise I have a feeling we’ll be going through this same process somewhere down the line with her again.
Dawn,
Yes, she is married and has grown children. I know that her husband has wanted her to stop taking in dogs for a long time now. I don’t think that they have much of relationship though. Just more like they still live at the same place, but with different lives.
As for the kids, one of the daughters is supposed to be coming to pick up dogs today, so I don’t know how that’s helping. Sounds more like it’s enabling her to me.
These types of events are sad for the rescue community. Unfortunately well meaning people can do more damage than good when they start hoarding animals.
It’s a good day for those dogs. As sad as it might seem, being euthanized can be a lot better option than living in a hoarding situation.
Hopefully the word will travel to some other rescues in Utah and some of those animals will be saved!
Remind me to tell you sometime about the 78 cats! Yet another sad situation that came to a somewhat happy ending!!
Christys last blog post..Some dogs love the desert!!!
It is sad when this happens. One of the dogs we had a few years ago was rescued from a rescue place that went totally out of control. When the authorities finally went in there the lady had 200 dogs and about 500 cats. We adopted one of the dogs and it had issues for the rest of it’s life. Not really bad issues, but you could tell she had not been in a good place. When we finally had to put her down I was just so glad that I had given 5 really good years.
I hope the word will spread about this person and things will work out for the animals. How sad!!
Flos last blog post..Dogtown
Too sad, and stressful. Ugh.
Cynthias last blog post..Gonna Take some Pictures
Christy,
Yeah, that’s exactly what has happened in this case. I know this person well, and I know that she had and still does have nothing but the best of intentions. It’s just crazy how they can so far off track.
Flo,
Years ago, there was another rescue turned hoarding situation in Idaho and we ended fostering an Aussie that was almost totally feral. He didn’t understand what people were for at all. It was so sad!
Yep Cyn,
Ugh about describes it.
Ugh, that’s too bad. I’m sure that woman really believes she is helping the animals. That is the sad part. Poor dogs.
Lindsays last blog post..Walk your dog 101 miles (day 3)
Heya Lindsay,
That’s exactly what she thinks she’s doing.
I was watching the news a couple nights ago and they had just taken something like 63 cats out of a lady’s house the other day after complaints of terrible odors coming from the house. The thing is that they had taken 30+ cats from the same woman not that many years ago!
To me one of the saddest things is that usually even after things have gotten to such a state of poor living conditions for both the people and animals and the authorities are called in to take the animals away…eventually the people tend to work up to that same situation again.