AZBHR Community News

Kudos to AZBHR and Kim Bruck!

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http://blog.adoptapet.com/hero-of-the-month-kim-bruck-arizona-basset-hound-rescue

AZBHR Saves Over 60 Bassets from Life in Puppy Mills

As you may already know Puppy Mills are a problem in our nation and now it’s even closer to home than you think. Over the past six months Arizona Basset Hound Rescue, an expert in dog welfare and puppy mills, has taken in 52 Basset Hounds from a puppy mill in Pinal County. AZBHR has worked with Pinal County for over two years trying to close down this breeder and is very thankful to Pinal County and all their staff for the efforts in getting the owner to surrender the final group of Bassets as of Monday, August 3rd.

Pinal County was able to get the owner to surrender 29 Bassets back in February and 22 of those dogs were turned over to AZBHR the balance were adopted out by Pinal County. The breeder recently was evicted and lost her home and moved down the road leaving 13 dogs at the property outside. When the Realtor showed up to survey the property, she found them and called animal control in Pinal County. According to animal control the dogs had NO food and NO water - this was last week, when the temps were in 110's plus. Once they tracked the breeder down, she claimed that she was feeding and watering them when she could, but hadn't had a ride in 3 days, so she hadn't been there. This week we received the call from Pinal County that they were able to get her to surrender all remaining Bassets to animal control. AZBHR will be taking in 16 of those 21 Bassets. Some of the remaining Bassets have parvo and are very sick, in fact a couple have not made it due to any vet care which is common with these puppy mills. “It breaks my heart to know that these dogs that have died from neglect could have been saved if they would have been taken to a vet for care at the early stages. The dogs depend on us humans to be there for them and care for them. No one should have an animal if they can’t care for them properly.” Kim Bruck, President, AZBHR.

When a dog is in a puppy mill they are often kept outdoors with little or no shade, kept in kennels or very small crates, giving the minimum of food and sometimes it’s not even dog food, when the dogs are no longer producing pups many times they are shot or drowned as were a few Bassets that AZBHR was to take from a puppy mill in another state.

Why buy from a puppy mill when there are so many dogs and cats that are euthanized each year? Check out the stats but Maricopa County is around 30,000 plus. Spay and neutering your pets is the responsible thing to do.

AZBHR is very active in saving dogs from the life of a puppy mill and have saved many from other states and in the past year alone over 60 Bassets. AZBHR requires all our foster homes other pets are spayed and neutered to promote spay and neuter.

Many of the Bassets have health issues such as valley fever, worms, and ticks and have never had any medical care so the medical expenses are high. All the Bassets are receiving medical care, shots and given love by the volunteer foster homes! 21 of the 22 Bassets taken in back in February are already adopted and in loving homes. One that is remaining is Fitzgerald and he was probably the most traumatized and was deathly scared of humans. Another major side affect of puppy mill dogs is that they have not been socialized with humans and are many times abused. AZBHR has two females, Natalie and Emily that have been in their foster home in Tucson for 1.5 years and still hide when company comes over. It takes lots of patience and love from their foster homes and adopters when severe cases like this occur. I’ve personally fostered 2 back in February and have one from recent group and they are hesitant at first but have come around and then cling to you by following you around and wanting to be with you all the time.

 

Puppy mills are not our only priority AZBHR works with all the dog welfare agencies in Arizona including the Arizona Humane Society and has taken in dogs about to be euthanized for the past 10 years. AZBHR prides itself on the volunteers who give countless hours to help save these animals and seeing them find a forever home to live out their life! See how many are enjoying their new lives.
 

 

More videos and new stories about the dogs:
AZBHR Gives Back to the Community

Meet Katie, AZBHR’s own therapy Basset Hound.

Last year Betty Briggs one of our great volunteers and Communications Coordinator (Betty handles our incoming calls and emails to info@azbassetrescue.com) came to the board with an awesome idea. Betty wanted to train one of our Basset Hounds in Delta's Pet Partners program to be a therapy dog. So the search began for the perfect therapy Basset Hound….. Katie, a rescue from Arkansas, who came to us with heartworm and was now very healthy and such a sweet, friendly and gentle Basset would be the lucky Basset.

Click Here to see the full story and lots of pictures! >>

Learn more about why you should ADOPT and not SHOP >>

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