One Day at a Time...

It's all over the news here in Michigan. A simple Google search of keywords like "Kalamazoo," "Allegan County," "350 dogs," and "puppy mill" will yield dozens of results. Over 350 dogs were seized from a small two-bedroom home in the Kalamazoo, MI area last week (the number has since risen with several pregnant dogs giving birth). It's claimed to be a small breeding operation gone bad, but when you really think about it, it appears to be much, much worse.

Source - Kalamazoo Gazette

Most local shelters can't appropriately accommodate that many dogs, let alone a two-bedroom house! People who saw the home first-hand have told me that kennels were stacked from ceiling to floor. The mostly Shih-Tzu mixes were soaked to the bone in urine and their fur was matted with feces. Out of all of the animals in the home, only one had been spayed/neutered to prevent over-breeding.

Just thinking about the deplorable conditions makes me sick to my stomach and makes my heart ache. For this to be all those poor babies know? It's heartbreaking! It's maddening! It's cruel and selfish and ignorant on the part of the owners!

The dogs are being dispersed around Michigan and we've been blessed to have been able to take in eight of them - four boys and four girls (one of whom is pregnant). A fellow volunteer went to the shelter they were being temporarily housed at and said that when you walked inside the huge facility full of the hundreds of dogs that were seized, it was completely silent. That's how scared all of these dogs were. They didn't make a peep the entire way back to Wayne County. Thursday afternoon was their first time walking on grass.

Some of them have already shown signs of improvement since they got here. The four boys are housed together while three of the girls are together and the pregnant one has her own pen. The boys seem to be enjoying their freedom between their large space indoors and their equally large space outdoors (when the weather is nice). They're learning how to play with toys and play with each other. I think the smallest one is the most frisky... the other boys will be tugging on toys with each other and the tiny one will do whatever he can to jump on their backs and start going! Once they're rehabilitated, though, they'll all be spayed and neutered and adopted out.

Source - Kalamazoo Gazette

The three girls housed together are extremely shy. They tend to just snuggle up with each other on their bed. One of them, known for being quite bitey, will just sit slouched over as close to the kennel door as she can, watching everything that's going on.

The pregnant one, who we named Mopsey but call Mama, is so very scared. It's saddening. I cuddled her in my arms the entire time her kennel was being washed out on Saturday morning. I truly believe that they are very sensitive creatures and that a little love can make all the difference in their rehabilitation and upbringing, so I held her, petting her slowly, telling her how good of a girl she was and how much we love her. She shook the entire time, and when her kennel was finally clean, she scuttled into the dog carrier in the back of her kennel and wouldn't leave the corner.

Most of the babies would eat, but Mama wouldn't. Later on we wrapped the bitey girl up in a towel and I held her for awhile. It was heartbreaking to feel the little rumbles in her tummy. At first I thought she may have been so scared that she was soiling herself in the towel, but come to find out it was hunger pains.

They're all in rough shape but we have high hopes for them. They all have issues with their teeth, had really bad fleas, and of course, their behavioral issues. They aren't potty trained, socialized, and aren't used to human interaction. Some of them seem to walk a little funny so we'll see if that develops into anything. I know one of the boys runs with his butt sideways so he looks like a backwards L shape. I have a feeling it might have something to do with chronic fleas, as though he bit toward his hind end so much that his hips just naturally turn that way now.

BUT! A little work and they'll be ready for loving families!

Want to help, too? Here's how! You can also call the Allegan County Animal Shelter at (269) 686-5112 or check out this Facebook page that has been set up to help. Every little bit makes a difference :)