Help Save Abandoned Animals like Duke

This year has seen an unprecedented number of abandoned and dumped animals. We have never seen anything like it. Here are a few stories that come to mind.

Amber was wandering the streets and due to give birth any day. We got her just in time for her to have her babies in a safe place. 

Bonnie was living in a vacant lot with her puppies doing the best she could for them. With the help of two kind ladies, we got them into foster and saw them flourish.

A litter of six puppies was dumped at our gate, and another litter of four puppies was found by a deputy sheriff abandoned on the side of the road.

Willow was caring for her pups under an abandoned house that was about to be demolished. We were able to take her and the babies in and give them a safe place to thrive.

One of our most heart wrenching stories was Athena, who lived tied out in a yard, neglected.  At some point the cable got wrapped around her leg and no one did anything about it. The circulation to the leg was cut off and subsequently the leg fell off.  She was found still trying to nurse her puppies with a bloody stump of a leg. Athena had surgery to properly seal the wound and is now a very happy girl that loves to go for walks and we are working on getting her puppies adopted. 

A good samaritan brought us 10 puppies that had been dumped in a plastic crate on the side of the road. We now have them in our care and they are the sweetest little angels. 

Three sweet little puppies were dumped in the city park during a terrible storm. They have since been adopted. 

Dixie Adoptables also took in a dog that had been hit by a car. Fortunately, he had no broken bones. He is the sweetest fella, and is now getting lots of love and attention. 

Cats and kittens have also come in at an alarming rate. We have had so many bottle babies this year, and lots of nursing mothers too. We even had a little fella that came to us because he was in the car with a couple who were arrested and there was nowhere else for him to go. Luckily, no charges were filed against the kitten and he is now waiting for a family to adopt him. 

These are just a few of the stories of the many animals we have taken in recently. We have taken in 224 animals in the last three months which is an increase of almost 20% as compared to these same months last year. 

We have also treated eleven dogs for heartworms in the last few months, and have treated more this year than we usually treat. All of the medical care as well as supplies have increased in price.

We need your support more now than ever as we have more animals in our care than we have ever had before. It has been a very expensive year caring for so many, take-ins are up and adoptions are down and we know that many more are out there waiting to be rescued. 

Right now there is a serious rescue crisis in this country. Animal shelters everywhere are bulging at the seams and there seems to be no slowdown coming. The counties surrounding us have no shelters and calls come in from not only local people desperate for help, but from neighboring states as well. We can’t afford more employees, so we soldier on dutifully 7 days a week with no end in sight. 

We are located in a poor rural area in one of the poorest states in the nation. Animals aren’t treated with respect, people don’t spay and neuter, and those in positions of power in these communities are experiencing budget cuts and consider putting money into animal rescue an unnecessary waste of resources and a very low priority. Further exacerbating the problem for not only us, but every other shelter, is a huge slowdown in adoptions. Homelessness is also increasing and we have taken in animals because when people are evicted and have no place to go. We have never had to do this in the past.

Because of all of this, Dixie Adoptables is currently overwhelmed with the number of animals that we have in custody. As puppy and kitten season started, we were inundated with young (4 and 5 week old) puppies as hunters found them dumped in the woods, linemen found puppies dumped in plastic containers, and people everywhere found litters dumped on the sides of roads. We also have many young kittens being bottle fed around the clock. We have tried to help as many animals as we possibly can, but the calls come in non-stop and we are out of room. The shelter is packed, all of our fosters are at their maximum limit, and we have even filled up the “overflow” building on the foster/board member’s property. We are truly at our limit. 

To illustrate this problem, in the 1st quarter of 2022 we took in 76 animals but adopted 204. This year for our first quarter, we have taken in 124 animals, and adopted 142. In all of 2022, we only treated 17 heartworm positive dogs but we have or are treating 21 already. The treatment is expensive and our budget is small. These numbers are depressing for those of us who have dedicated our lives to helping these precious animals that can’t help themselves. 

Two of our saddest cases are Stefani and River. Stefani was found tied to our gate with a massive open wound on her neck where her collar had grown into her skin. This shows that not only was she poorly cared for, but she had lived her life tied up as though she were a bicycle, not a living creature looking for love and companionship. River was found in a swampy area by a man checking his bee hives. She was starving, almost all of her hair was gone, and she had a serious eye wound from a sharp object. 

For all the ones we are helping, there are many times this number that need our help. We simply don’t have the room or money to help right now. By the time we get these precious animals, we are their last hope. If we can’t help them, they just won’t get any help and will starve or die of infections and parasites. No animal deserves this.

Please consider donating to help us during this time of our greatest need. These dogs and cats need medical care, food, water, and much more. Your donations go directly to providing those much needed basic necessities. As always, we give our sincere thanks to you for supporting us.