Chattooga County - Puppy Mill Bust

Many of you saw on WSB the footage of the puppy mill bust from Chattooga County. DREAM was coordinating with DRNA (who had volunteered to coordinate all rescues in the area for the dachshunds at the mill) to take in as many as we could.

Unfortunately, we found out this morning that all but 11 dogs will be returned to this breeder. The puppy mill went to the department of agriculture and had their license increased to handle up to 100 dogs. This is extremely discouraging to those of us who deal with the "downstream" of these decisions.

I am still hoping to get some of those dachshunds, and save them and their offspring from future suffering.

If you know someone who is NOT a breeder, and who is willing to go to Chattooga County, adopt a dachsie, and spay/neuter it, and take responsible care of it, I hope you'll send them a link to this message. We in rescue will be working to get as many of them out of the puppy mill system as we can.

Meanwhile, the rest of those dogs are back with the people who cause much of the need for rescue in the first place, making more and more and more puppies.

Moving 'em in, moving 'em out.

We're having a big week, both in adoptions and in intakes.

It looks as though Smokey Joe and Jake have good homes coming their way...just need to finalize a few things.

This week we agreed to take in 5 doggies, but 3 of them have turned out not to need us. We are taking Doc and Pepper in today. Their family is having a really difficult time, having suffered the death of a grandchild, a miscarriage, and now health issues with the new baby. I am picking them up at 3:30, taking them to the vet, and then crowding them in at my house until I can get them to their new foster homes on Saturday.

We also agreed to take Dudley from another rescue group who is really struggling, but they have decided to keep him after all.

A little nameless boy in Animal Control near Helen, GA, was going to come to DREAM, but he was adopted! Happy story!

A little boy at UGA veterinary hospital had back surgery, but it was not successful. His family was going to either turn him in to DREAM or euthanize him, but at the last minute they decided to give it a try and take him home with a cart. We wish them well, and hope they will allow us to mentor them in the care of their little one until they are in the swing of things.

There is a little senior girl in Cherokee county in need. I hope that DARE or DRNA will be able to get her, but none of our foster homes is appropriate for her. It is so difficult to have both 1) space and 2) appropriate space at the same time.

For the doggies....

Luke is ALMOST standing up!

The swim therapy is really helping Luke. We have been 6 times. His back legs are much more "bendy" now -- the contractures are a lot better. He is really trying to stand up. Many times I will turn around and he is standing on one of the back legs. He holds it for a few seconds, then sort of lists off to one side, and he's sitting again.

He's in terrific spirits, although he doesn't like the swimming very much. He cooperates, but you can tell he doesn't enjoy it. When she first puts him in the pool, he tries to swim across it to where I'm sitting and watching. His eyes are huge. But he can really kick those back legs. The kicks aren't very coordinated yet, but he is moving the legs and pushing off from her hand to propel himself forward. He can really go! -- he makes a little "wake" behind him!

Once the swim therapy has really worked out his contractures, we will go back to Loving Touch to try to underwater treadmill to actually get him taking steps again.