Update on California Rescued Shelties...

dmeyer123

dmeyer123

Forums Enthusiast
Her is the latest update from Southland Sheltie Rescue. The out pouring of support and help for these dogs is heart warming. Sheltie People are AWESOME!!!!


Here is another mini update for you all! First of all, we want to send out a huge THANK YOU and our forever gratitude to our local Clubs, the Shetland Sheepdog Club of Southern California http://www.sheltiesocal.com/ , Tri Valley Shetland Sheepdog Club http://trivalleyshetlandsheepdogclub.com/Tri-Valley_Shetland_Sheepdog_Club/Welcome.html , and Santiago Shetland Sheepdog Club, and the (not so close!) Mid Arizona Shetland Sheepdog Club (bought lunch for all the volunteers!!!) as well as our "Mother Club" the ASSA http://www.assa.org/clubs.html for their unbelievable support! Each of these Clubs have sent representatives to the shelter to groom and care for these shelties! This is a heck of a job and this kind of support for the shelties is overwhelming and so heartwarming! Along with so many individuals and breeders, I just want to say once again.....Way to go Sheltie People, you are undeniably the BEST!!

I just talked to our President and Vice President, Kathy Parsons and Judi Barry, on their way home from the shelter. There have been 36 dogs completely transformed by these wonderful folks so far, and they hope to do the rest of them today! Still no word on if or how many will come into our rescue, because they are still evaluating each of the rest of the dogs. How the dogs deal with the grooming process may well help them make those decisions. As much as we realllllllly want to know, nobody is trying to push them, as they have their hands full! Apparently all of the dogs that have been spoken for by the public have been spayed and neutered, so I assume in the next few days they will have completed the interview process with the people who have put holds on them, and have the dogs all sorted out into their new homes. At that time, I am sure they will have removed the ones who are adopted from their website.

Kathy and Judi will be going back this afternoon, so if there is more to tell...I will be telling you! They wanted to be sure you all know that we have made our presence and willingness to take ANY or ALL of the "unadoptable" dogs known. And, I also want to make sure you all know that any money sent to our rescue on behalf of these dogs WILL GET TO THE DOGS, even if we don't get any of the shelties into our rescue. I am going to repeat Ann Neftin's info (Thanks again Ann for making this so easy for me!) here regarding how to donate to these dogs through our Paypal link:

"Also hoping the people who cannot be there helping WILL take a moment and DONATE to Southland Sheltie Rescue thru the SSR PayPal account. www.southlandsheltierescue.org. The donation tab is on the right of the page. Show your support and DONATE. I did!!! It's fast & EASY. And tax-deductible! This is especially convenient for anyone out of the area who wants to show they care!"

That is all for now, what could have been the worst nightmare in our long rescue career has clearly turned into the most positive of all. Thanks to all of you once again! Hopefully I will have more soon....or soon-ish! ~Kathleen
 
dmeyer123 said:
Sheltie People are AWESOME!!!!
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That's exactly what I posted on my facebook. :) I love how all the Sheltie people are willing to take all these dogs in, even if just to get them out of the shelter. And that they actually went down there to help bathe them and what not. Amazing!!!

If I lived there, I would have been there Monday morning putting a hold on one of them.
 
Thank you so much for the update. I have prayed to hard for these baby's to get everything they need to make them whole again. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who volunteered and were able to lend a helping hand. :hugs
 
I second that...

Sullivan said:
Thank you so much for the update. I have prayed to hard for these baby's to get everything they need to make them whole again. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who volunteered and were able to lend a helping hand. :hugs
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I second that! My feeling exactly!
 
Here is the latest from Southland Sheltie Rescue, for those of you who don't do Facebook. This is one amazing effort.


Dear Sheltie Family...I am so sorry for the lack of an update yesterday! As I finished the update, I smelled a electrical burning smell and my computer went black! There was an electrical short and I am not sure how much of a computer I have now! I felt the worst about not being able to update you guys! So here I am on my husband's stone age computer, and I am sending this before anything else goes wrong!!! Ignore any mistakes, I didn't take the time to proof read! Here is what I wrote yesterday!

I didn't want to go much longer before I updated you guys, but once again I was waiting for some FACTS! LOL! I guess we have more than usual, so I will try to get everything out here.
Judi and Kathy went to the shelter again today, very early in the morning. They brought more ice and drinks and didn't plan to help work on the dogs as they were told that nobody else was needed today. Once again, several of our local breeders were there (I don't want to leave anyone out so I am not naming names until I get a list! But the gratitude is there and for now, they know who they are!) and a few other sheltie lovers were giving their time in the horrid heat to help these babies! They said they could use help after all, so Judi and Kathy became the "towel fluffers" that took the dogs directly from the bath to be towel dried in x-pens, before the hard work of blowing them out and mat removal was done. Judi said that the dogs came to them shaking like a leaf, but after about ten minutes they were responding and putting their heads in Judi's lap...Awwwww, poor babies.
They got to see all, or close to all, the dogs today. The groomers worked wonders and they look amazing! Many are stained and it will take a while for their lighter colors to lighten up, but they were able to save the coats on ALL BUT ONE sheltie! Amazing! The shelter has been fantastic, so diligent, so careful and so kind. They are being as responsible as anyone of us would be in this situation and we couldn't say more great things about them! Truly beyond the call of duty. All the dogs that needed medical care of any kind are being treated, and by the time they go to their new homes, they are going to be unrecognizable, inside and out! The main problems, beyond the fact that a number of these dogs are seniors with senior troubles, seem to be ear infections, skin conditions and very poor teeth.
The number one question is not any closer to being answered...but at least it is from the horses mouth! The question, of course, is "Will SSRI get any of these dogs?". The answer, from the shelter staff, is that they don't know yet. They have not done the interviews with potential homes and have not completed the spays and neuters, either. The vet was there today, specifically to go over each dog to see if they are in good enough condition to have surgery. They were going to start interviews today, so it seems unlikely that any dogs will leave the shelter until Monday. They are truly invested in the fate of these dogs, and they made it clear that they would love to be able to adopt them all out from their own facility. This is totally understandable in this situation, so we are still just going to have to wait and see.
I truly understand the sentiments of the shelter worker who said that the number of people willing to adopt these dogs is "bittersweet" as their other dogs are passed by for lack of a "story". I, personallly, feel a bit that way too, as I know that middle aged, or older shelties, ones with medical conditions, or just plain unhappy in the shelter RARELY (really rarely!) get adopted and end up with us. I am thinking of our dogs on our website now who would dearly love a forever home. If anyone wants to take a peek....please do! www.adoptasheltie.com

Thanks so much, as always ~Kathleen







www.adoptasheltie.com

www.SouthlandSheltieRescue.org
 
How amazing. If people use Petfinder and search for Sheltie to see these dogs they will see the Southland Dogs as well. I am hoping people find them and choose them too. There are so few shelties available in California, mostly because sheltie people are THIS awesome.
 
Hopefully it'll get sorted soon and the shelter and rescue can figure out which dog is going where. It'll be so nice when the dogs can finally get into homes where they are loved and cared for :)

It sounds like the shelter is being very careful about the adoptions as there was concern about the previous owners friends trying to adopt dogs in order to return them to her. Todays press release also said the DA is planning on filing charges so they may keep them to make sure they have all the evidence/pics they need prior to releasing the dogs.
 
In case anyone is interested here is the press release:

Shelter Readies Shelties for Adoptions
Riverside County Plans to Seek Animal Cruelty Charges;
Volunteers Help Groom Neglected Shetland Sheep Dogs;

FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2014 – Employees and volunteers washed and groomed dozens of recently impounded Shetland sheep dogs this week in preparation of getting them adopted into loving homes.

In a new development, Riverside County Animal Services Director Robert Miller announced Friday that he plans to seek animal cruelty charges against the owner of the dogs.

The dogs – 61 in total and all shelties – were part of a large-scale impound activity after a house fire in a pocket of unincorporated Riverside County this past weekend (Saturday, July 19).

The house fire displaced the owner of the dogs at that Woodcrest property on Pike Place, just off Van Buren Boulevard. The dogs’ owner, Ginny Dennis, surrendered ownership of the dogs to Riverside County Animal Services. Officers transported the dogs Saturday afternoon to the Western Riverside County/City Animal Shelter in Jurupa Valley where veterinary team members examined all the dogs.

The county issued a news release about the incident on Saturday and updated the story later Saturday night. When officers first came across the dogs, they all appeared to be relatively healthy. The department’s role on Saturday afternoon was not as an enforcement agency. Animal control officers were requested by another county agency to help assist with the large number of dogs.

When the dogs were further examined by Riverside County Chief Veterinarian Dr. Allan Drusys and his team members, the dogs showed signs of years of neglect. Specifically, almost every one of the dogs illustrated poor dental hygiene, Dr. Drusys said.

“We believe these dogs were never cared for in a manner consistent with proper animal husbandry,” Dr. Drusys said. “All dogs require a proper level of dental hygiene, similar to us. There was a complete lack of oral hygiene provided these animals. In some cases there was more tartar than teeth in their mouths. The condition of the mouths was a direct reflection of complete lack of care the owner provided. Basically these dogs were fed – and nothing else was done for them.”

Director Robert Miller said he plans to seek animal cruelty charges with the District Attorney’s office using a subsection of Penal Code Section 597 related to neglect. “Essentially, our plan is to seek animal cruelty based on her lack of providing proper veterinary care for these animals,” Miller said. “A pet owner must provide consistent veterinary care for their animals.”

Almost every one of the shelties were tick infested, matted and had flea infestations. The dogs did not appear to have been bathed or groomed regularly, if at all.

“The animals were living in filth,” Miller said.

Animal Services employees and volunteers are currently calling back the more than 100 people that expressed interest in adopting one of the shelties. The department is going to reserve the right to do a yard check, or inspection of a potential adopter’s property, as a contingency to adoption.

Adoptions will likely happen sometime next week. More than 100 people inquired about adopting one of the dogs – and some of the potential adopters that visited the shelter were allowed to put a “hold” on one of the dogs. Anyone still interested in adopting can inquire via Riverside County Animal Services’ main e-mail address: [email protected] (please no phone calls).

The department is concerned that some of the would-be adopters are actually friends of the dogs’ former owner and are going to attempt to somehow get the dogs back to her.

“We’re going to do everything to ensure these dogs are going to loving families and not end up back in the possession of someone we do not believe is capable of caring for animals in a proper manner,” Miller said.

This week, a dozen or so volunteers came to the aid of the shelties. The volunteers included sheltie rescue group volunteers, sheltie breeder enthusiasts and others that wanted to ensure the dogs were well cared for after reading and watching the shelties story in media reports.

Some of the volunteers represented or are members of such nonprofit groups as: The American Shetland Sheepdog Association (ASSA), Southland Shelties Rescue Inc., Sheltie Rescue Alternative, the Shetland Sheepdog Club of Southern California and the Santiago Shetland Sheepdog Club.

Amid all the sheltie enthusiasts was Loralee Runnels, whose loyalties are deeply rooted with the California Collie Clan and the San Gabriel Valley Collie Club. All the sheltie women still welcomed her assistance, despite her allegiance with a rival herding-group breed. She and her fellow volunteers said they were disgusted at how the shelties were treated.

“This is not typical of breeders – this is an anomaly,” Runnels said. “Most people love them and would never think of them to be in this condition, ever.”
 
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