My Nonprofit Reviews

Love my new Country Life but not the amount of homeless, helpless Dogs.

Three years ago I left the city life and moved to the country with my husband and son. I love living here, it's calm and beautiful by the lake and so nice to see all of the wildlife this area still has to offer. Once I lived here for a few months, I've noticed the large amount of stray dogs in this area. It always breaks my heart to see one of these sweet pups out by themselves near busy roads or in cold winter weather. After rescuing a puppy and successfully finding him a home, we found ourselves in a very bad situation six months after. The road into our neighborhood is fairly secluded and apparently a favorite spot for heartless, careless people to dump dogs. In the Fall of 2013 someone dumped 4 Chihuahua mix dogs in one night, only to be followed by 3 more Terrier mix dogs the following week. All of them were terrified and would not come to us, even for treats. We've tried for weeks and feared for their life each and every night we could not catch them. We made a make shift camp out of an old dog house and a pallet to ensure that these pups had a place to sleep and to keep them warm as we were now facing cold winter temperatures. We went thru a litter with one of the moms only to find them missing one morning. We've kept them all alive throughout the winter and in the Spring they finally started coming around with more and more time spent at their hiding spot. At that point I had reached out to numerous no-kill shelters, rescue organizations, capture organizations and even the news station; nobody was returning my calls and emails. Then, I stumbled across Texas Best Animal Choices Rescue and reached out to them. They were willing to help and took in the Chihuahuas and got them adopted into loving homes. One of the Terrier mixes had already started trusting me in the fall and I was fostering her (well at this time, it was a 'foster failure' and she was enjoying being a permanent part of our family. The other two Terriers were still on the loose and one of them was pregnant and would not let us catch her. Then one day, we got lucky with her sister and she also went to Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue only to be adopted one week later by one of my neighbors that had helped tremendously in her capture. The last Terrier mix was still hesitant and once she finally let us touch her, we've noticed that she had given birth to her puppies but we could not find them anywhere. She didn't look engorged, so we knew that she was nursing and had them hidden somewhere. We kept following her after feeding her daily and we finally figured out that she had walked down a steep hill/cliff and found a cave to hide her puppies in. Even though it was quite a challenge, we found our way down there but weren't able to grab the puppies. The next day, we came back with my 11 year old son in tow and he was able to crawl half way into the cave and hand me one puppy after the next. We put them all into my backpack so that we could safely get them up the cliff and into my truck along with mom and off to Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue. Again, they helped us get all of the pups adopted and mom ended up also being adopted by my neighbor. :)

Since that day, we've become best friends with Allan and Karen, the founders of Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue. We go and volunteer at the Rescue and walk the dogs and socialize the scared ones. We tend to their scars and leash train them to get them ready for their new life in a furever home. Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue usually has around 130 dogs to care for and is the only no-kill dog rescue in this area. They are not supported by any government funding and can only sustain from donations and adoption fees. We have since saved approximately 15 more dogs and Texas Best Choices Animal Rescue has helped us with all of them. There are a lot of sad stories that come with each one of the dogs but just by being there every weekend and give unconditional love to the dogs just to receive it back in return has made a wonderful difference in my life and something I look forward to every weekend.