MOUNTAINS OF UNWANTED PETS—Animal Rescue in Appalachia

They’re everywhere here—feral cats, skinny dogs dumped alongside twisting mountain roads, puppies abandoned in the woods, strays running down the main streets in town. The nearest low-cost spay/neuter clinic is almost two hours away. In recent years, the local pound has seen an average yearly intake of one dog per 47 residents of the county, which has a population of 45,000. In 2012, our tiny municipal pound killed more dogs than five of Virginia’s major metropolitan areas combined.

Hi. My name is Rhonda Kay, and I’m the Director of a 501c3 animal rescue in Southwest Virginia.

Central Appalachia is not a good place to be a dog. Or a cat. There’s a generational predisposition toward indifference here, and animals take the brunt of our floundering communities. Virginia law regards pets as property, and locals tend to interpret that very literally. Law enforcement attitudes toward animal welfare tend to be relaxed here, as I’ll show you with a couple recent videos. We have good animal control officers, but they’re struggling in a criminal justice environment that doesn’t always back them up in court. So vicious cycles continue ad infinitum.

WHAT WE DO

My rescue tries to intercept pets before they enter the county sheltering system, which is inadequate in numerous ways to handle such high volume. Rather than make efforts to rehome these animals back into an already beleaguered community, we transport most of them to zip codes in New England were the local shelters no longer have to kill for space. We have rescue partners in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania who place our dogs in wonderful homes. We make sure that every animal leaving our program is spayed or neutered, microchipped, up to date on all core vaccines, dewormed, and recently confirmed heartworm negative.

Here are the dogs we’ve placed through our rescue partners and through adoption since January of this year.

Roscoe was a very special case for us. He'd been with us since 2013. In 2015, he went blind very suddenly. A two-hour trip to Virginia Tech's teaching veterinary hospital confirmed our worst fears: Roscoe had severe glaucoma, a congenital form, and would never regain his eyesight. But we didn't give up on him. Finally, this spring, our Vermont rescue partner found the perfect adopter for Roscoe. He has now had surgery on both eyes to relieve the pain and is awaiting transport to Canada. Congratulations, Roscoe! The best part of your life is just beginning.

WHY WE STRUGGLE

Most of our funding to operate comes from people who’ve adopted Appalachian animals through our New England rescue partners, and from supporters out of the region. Appalachia seems to struggle with the idea of charitable giving.

This doesn’t apply to animal-oriented nonprofits exclusively. Several years ago, a professional athlete who graduated from one of our county’s high schools came back to the hometown where he grew up and spend almost two million dollars establishing a children’s outreach program here. It was successful. However, his campaign to enlist local support for the outreach program was a total failure. He quit trying, pulled up stakes here, and went back to Eastern Virginia, shaking the dust off his shoes as he went. Here's a post that appeared online shortly afterward, a sentiment written by a Southwest Virginia local that seems shared by most residents of our community:

"I don't remember this whole [outreach program] being something that our towns would eventually have to fund. I remember Mr. XXXX starting these programs, but I do not ever remember hearing that eventually taxpayers would have to help with the funding of these programs. I think it's shameful to ask for money when our towns didn't know we were responsible for doing so in the first place."

Just this week, someone posted a similar comment on our rescue’s Facebook page. We were not asking for donations at the time; this was a post about two men we caught trying to dump a box of live kittens on our private property. The comment appeared as follows:

"If you can’t support a rescue on your own don’t start a rescue!"

I’m not sure when people in Central Appalachia decided that anyone attempting to serve the community in a nonprofit way should fund the effort entirely from their own pockets. But this definitely seems to be a trend, here in the welfare capital of the world, directly across the state line from McDowell County WV where in the sixties, residents were the first national recipients of food stamps under newly elected President John F. Kennedy. http://www.wealthandpoverty.net/2014/04/the-reign-of-poverty-in-mcdowell-county084741.php It’s heartbreaking to see so much need here, but maddening when offers of assistance are met with overwhelming lack of appreciation. We’ve managed to stay afloat with the rescue because of support from Eastern Virginia and New England, but we’re treading water. It’s my opinion that the attitudes we see about animal welfare are indicative of a much deeper social issue. I think the fruit of those problems can also be seen in the local high school dropout rate (as high as 10% recently,) the opiod and alcohol abuse, and the unchallenged political corruption.

Today I've spent hours trying to decide if I want to make an issue of local law enforcement's failure to make charges against the two men who crossed a closed gate and climbed 22 steps on private property to dump a box full of tiny kittens in hopes someone else would assume all responsibility for them. When I consider what happened in January of this year, I despair that any good would come from my complaint. The following video was taken by the neighbor of the people who owned these dogs. According to him, no one had been to the property for a week to feed or water these animals. He had been feeding them himself. The temperature was predicted to fall into the teens that night, so we called animal control and begged them to save these dogs. An officer did take the dogs to the local shelter overnight, but made contact with the owner the following morning and promptly returned all three animals with no charges filed.

In the next video, taken only a few houses down from the first one, neighbors called animal control because the owner hadn't been home in days, the mother dog was chained underneath a back porch with no other shelter, and the puppies were in the road. Animal Control Officers came to the residence, left all the dogs in place, found the owner on vacation and spoke with her by phone. The puppies were not secured, not seized, and no charges were filed.

Problems in the jurisdiction adjacent to us, Russell County, are far worse. That is a blog post for another day.

One more video, but this one should make you smile. Again, someone dumped an animal here on private property, a pup barely six weeks old, on New Year's Eve in the snow. She had a rubber band wrapped around her tail to amputate it. The story has a very happy ending, but the beginning will boil your blood. Graphic images, so beware.

We've drastically reduced the number of dogs we intake, which has limited the number we can save. Because funding has been so hard to come by and community support has been so limited, we've had no choice. But we do still have some dogs, and I'd love to introduce you to them. We have several in permanent sanctuary for medical or behavioral issues. The others are considered "difficult" dogs, mostly due to fear issues. We have had wonderful luck rehabilitating dogs like this, and have every reason to believe all the "rehab" dogs in this list will eventually find perfect homes. :-)

Bandit was a stray roaming the streets of our town for months, evading capture and frequently darting into traffic. After he was captured and impounded, it became clear that he had severe fear and trust issues and was a bite risk. We took him into rescue and have had him for more than a year. Bandit could potentially be adopted, but he might also be a good candidate for permanent sanctuary. He's about five years old, very shy but sweet, and lacks appropriate social skills around people. He gets along great with other animals, though, and is quite happy to be off the streets. He would not be a suitable pet for a home with children.

Brother and Smiley are two dogs who came to us completely feral, as adults, in 2015. The going has been really slow with them, since to our knowledge they had no exposure to humans during those all-important puppy months. Smiley, on the right in the photo, is adjusting much better than Brother, who still struggles. Both dogs can be handled without fear of a bite, but both still tremble when touched. We do want to keep working with these dogs until we can successfully place them in homes, but anticipate several more months of rehab before we reach that point. They're about two years old.

Chance has been with our rescue since 2013. We believe he had distemper as a puppy; his entire litter was sick when we intook them. Chance suffered the worst and had the longest recovery, which meant he spent most of his puppy months in rescue recovering. He has some neurological deficits that affect his behavior. He's good with other dogs, but seems unable to properly interpret social cues from other animals or people, so his play groups are supervised. He's about four years old, very gentle, but will always be skittish and may suffer short-term memory issues. He might be a candidate for adoption to the right home, but we don't advise a home with children as a precautionary measure.

Chloe is a small dog who seems like she'd be a great fit for any family. But Chloe has such severe anxiety issues that she almost never leaves the room where she sleeps. She has been known to faint from fear, and to take of running as fast as she can oblivious to what's around her. This makes her a very poor candidate for adoption, so Chloe will likely stay here with us in rescue. She is loved and has many doggie friends in the permanent pack.

E.J. came to us in 2015 from a nearby shelter. The rescue coordinator knew we work well with unsocialized dogs, and asked us for help. E.J. began showing improvements in his scared and sketchy behavior almost immediately. He is now ready for adoption to an understanding owner who will anticipate several months of adjustment while E.J. adapts to a new life. He's about three years old and loves attention. Good with other dogs, but shouldn't be around cats or prey animals due to his keen interest in them.

Gabriel came to us in 2014 after being being dumped anonymously at a West Virginia shelter where a "drop box" is still in use. Even then, as a pup, he was very large and had poor impulse control. He's has mellowed with time, but still requires a very experienced handler. Gabriel is not aggressive toward dogs, humans, or small animals, but care must be taken to avoid overstimulating him. Any potential adopter would have to show some previous training credentials and agree to obedience classes with Gabriel before we would ever consider placing him in a home. He can have permanent sanctuary here.

Reba is a very sweet but shy girl who has been with us since 2015. She is now ready for a home, and has an adoption application from New England pending. She came to us from a local shelter who recognized that she was very scared and needed time to adjust. Reba still gets frightened, but we believe she's ready for a home of her own.

Parker has permanent sanctuary with us. He is a reflex biter, which means he isn't aggressive, but could potentially inflict a damaging injury on someone who didn't understand his triggers. We believe he was abused in some way as a puppy, and we know he spent the first years of his life on a chain. Parker is a happy dog, loves people and the other dogs here in rescue. We just don't believe it's safe to place him in a home, and since he does not have to be kenneled separately or otherwise suffer for the safety of other animals and people, putting him down is not an option for us at all.

Silka is a very special girl. She loved her owner very much, but in 2014, her owner passed away unexpectedly and Silka was not rescued from the house for several days. She then spent several weeks at the county shelter waiting for family of her deceased owner to claim her. They did not, so we took her in. Silka has grieved. Under the right circumstances, we would consider placing her in an adoptive home. But it might be best for Silka to just stay here with us, since she has acclimated and grown attached to other dogs who stay here at the rescue permanently.

Rayne has been with us since 2013. She has permanent sanctuary. She was heartworm positive when we first took her in, and after treatment, she was left with a severe heart murmer that means no veterinarians--even the specialists at Virginia Tech--will put her under general anesthesia. So Rayne cannot be spayed. Therefore there is no alternative for her except to remain in permanent rescue. She's happy--we make sure to spoil her a little more every day.

Roxie is a sweet senior girl, an AKC-registered chihuahua, who like so many other chis found herself dumped at a high kill shelter. She is for adoption, but her new family would have to understand the special needs of an aging tiny dog. She is very sweet and easy to love. Roxie deserves nothing but the best, and here she gets to be queen of her castle. Like most dogs here, Roxie is never kenneled, but gets to live as part of a pack and is welcome to spend the rest of her years with us if no adopter comes forward.

These are the dogs in rescue. In addition to this crew, my personal dogs have free run of the place, mixing and mingling and teaching any newcomers the ropes. In addition to these dogs, we have twelve cats, two birds pulled from a local shelter, a potbellied pig pulled from a local shelter, a rabbit, and a goat.

@carolkean @paleotreats @smuggly-sparrow