Ten days ago, this issue was driven home yet again when we were asked to take on a second group of the Yucca Valley Chihuahuas. An older man who believes in the Biblical passage of 'go forth and populate' had refused to have any of his Chihuahuas spayed or neutered. Five years ago, he had 10 dogs and now he has over 200. And it fell upon the rescue community to step in and help out.
Unfortunately we had already taken 12 and they were in the process of moving through our system. We have only 6 small isolation kennels, so we are limited by what we can do. Unable to afford to purchase a large isolation unit, we put out a plea to the FaceBook community in an effort to have it funded, but in the meantime, the dogs needed help and NOW.
Luckily, one of the TLC volunteers is a CraigsList devoted fan and she happened to see that a local pet shop was going out of business. She contacted and negotiated a price for their 8 stainless steel kennels. While we had not raised enough money to cover this new intake area expansion, I knew we had to do this NOW if we were to help.
In the meantime, the situation at Yucca Valley went from bad to worse. When the rescuers arrived on Wednesday (as agreed upon) to pick up the last of the these 35+ dogs, the owner became distraught, brandished a handgun and threatened to kill himself and all of his dogs. The rescuers did what they felt was the best of a bad situation - simply take the 16 dogs he had released before the drama began.
On Thursday, 16 more of the Yucca Valley Chihuahuas arrived at TLC. We did not have an intake area officially set up, but had temporary kennels and condos ready to receive these dogs in an ad hoc basis. The transporter and I, along with another TLC volunteer, performed the delicate balancing act of getting each dog out of the transporter's van (without getting bit) and into the temporary kennels.
Allowing them to decompress on Friday, other TLC volunteers made the drive to Lancaster to pick up these stainless steel kennels. That began an all-day affair to transport, clean them up upon arrival and once the rescue shop had closed down for the day, reassemble the units onto a rack and prepare them to receive new occupants.
As other volunteers named, weighed and bathed the new 16 arrivals one by one, the normal routine of closing the shop and bedding down the dogs continued on by the volunteers on shift for the day (and Saturday is our busiest day!).
A little before 11PM, the intake area began taking in clean, new occupants. It is not what we wanted and not new, but it is functional.
We still have more to do that will cost more money - have a contractor come in and build another doorway between the back room and the new intake area, etc. Equipment needs to be moved from the back room to the intake area so we can bring in dogs, weigh them, do the vaccines and have them go directly into the intake kennels without possibly contaminating our other rescues.
::HUGE APPLAUSE:: to the volunteers who worked all day and into the night to make this all happen, the volunteer who found these used units on CraigsList and the volunteer bathers who continue to bring comfort to these dogs until all 28 (in total) are done... And for other rescue groups have stepped up to help finance the spay & neuter of these dogs... It takes a community to save a dog - that's for sure!
But step by step, this 'little rescue that could' continues to trudge up that mountain in an effort to arrive at a time when we no longer kill healthy, adoptable small dogs... and I can RETIRE!
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