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Day One Complete for River Valley Rescue

February 28, 2009, 1:26AM MT

By Cheri Moon

Rescuers Use Traps, Stealth and Leftover Quesadillas to Wrangle Over 100 Free-roaming Dogs

Rescuers Use Traps, Stealth and Leftover Quesadillas to Wrangle Over 100 Free-roaming Dogs

By Cheri Moon, Best Friends Staff

As the morning sun begins to shine on the bare branches surrounding the Missouri Ozarks, the bay of a dog echoes across the fields ringing in a new day for nearly 150 abandoned dogs.

The night before, a trio of three dedicated rescue workers—Rich Crook, Best Friends field team leader; Kelli Ohrtman, Best Friends field communications officer; and Elizabeth Wainwright from the Missouri Department of Agriculture—sat huddled around a table at Ruby Tuesday’s in Southwest Missouri discussing plans to remove the dogs from the property the following morning.

An Ambitious Day
Capture. Assess. Identify. Tag and kennel. The process seems simple enough. It’s the execution of that process over 100 times in a row that complicates things. That and winning over the shy dogs that have learned nothing good comes from humans—and dealing with the occasional escape artist.

Best Friends was on site to help stabilize a situation that careened out of control after the kennel owner, who did not have a breeder’s license for his River Valley Puppies Kennels, set fire to the property after state officials arrived to take over custody of the dogs.

Working alongside Noah’s Wish, a California-based animal welfare organization dedicated exclusively to rescuing and sheltering animals in disasters, the teams spent the day wrangling and caring for dogs.

Dispersed across 100 partially fenced acres, the teams used food to attract dogs to them, traps to ensnare the more shy ones, and stealth maneuvers to sneak up on others.

Says Ohrtman, “Groups of dogs would be huddled together in a field sleeping. We would sneak up on them, put cables around their necks, they’d wake up and we lead them away.”

And if that didn’t work, a leftover quesadilla from Ruby Tuesday’s was certain to do the trick.

Sammy: Liver and White Springer Spaniel, First Time On A Leash

Curled up on a cement slab in a deep sleep, Ohrtman tiptoed up to the slumbering dog and carefully looped a leash around his neck. Having lived most of his life in a cage, the sensation of a leash was new to him, and one he did not like.

Says Ohrtman, “He stopped struggling after he realized we weren’t fighting back. Then he began to shake, flopped over and froze.” Team members gently pet the dog and talked in soothing voices to try and reassure the terrified animal. Then ever so gently, they tipped him into a kennel, took off the leash at which point he got up and was fine.

Sissy: German Short Hair, Pregnant and Emaciated
Sissy is a young liver and white German shorthaired pointer. She’s carrying a sagging belly full of unborn puppies on a too skinny body that shows every rib.

Sissy found herself contained after she wandered into a trap in search of food. After being transferred to a kennel, Sissy surprised her captures by bolting out the kennel door as it was opened to provide fresh water. And even though her antics required workers to chase her down for a second time, Ohrtman remarks, “She’s very sweet. And who could blame her for not wanting to go back into a cage.”

No Name: Black and White Springer Spaniel, Possible Health Complication
Just as the team was ready to call it a night, a Best Friends team member stumbled upon a black and white bundled curled into the corner of an old barn. “We’re worried about this one,” she says. “The poor thing has a large lump on the side of her face. And she was so easy to catch—scared, but very gentle and sweet.”

Day One Ends, Day Two On The Horizon
And so, the first day of wrangling dogs comes to a close. To be repeated again tomorrow. The crew left with approximately 50 dogs still on site and yet to be captured.

Says Ohrtman, “It’s a really chaotic and tragic situation.” The burned down buildings are still smoldering. And the dogs are covered in grey ash.

She adds, “Ninety percent of these dogs are friendly. They just need to be in a safe place and they’ll come around just fine.”

Integral to the success of the rescue effort are the organizations who are taking the dogs to adopt them out. Some of these groups include:
• No More Homeless Pets, KC
• English Springer Rescue of America
• Central Missouri Humane Society in Columbia

Click on the image to the right to see video of day two of the River Valley dog rescue.

How You Can Help
• Volunteers are not needed at the puppy mill site, but people interested in helping can make a donation for the care of the dogs by visiting puppymills.bestfriends.org.

• Join The Truth About the Pet Trade community to learn more about how you can help in your community.

• Never purchase a dog over the internet without inspecting the property from where the dogs were raised. For more information about how puppy mills trick unsuspecting owners and use the internet to sell dogs, click here.

For More Articles on This Story

• Trial By Fire

• River Valley Rescue

Photograph by Gary Kalpakoff, Best Friends Staff

Comments

Posted March 02, 2009, 9:42 by Edward

Go Team!

Hey Everyone! I know those guys!

Posted March 29, 2009, 1:57AM by ilybsdac

awww. thats so mean what people do to animals. yuck people are cruel :(

Posted February 28, 2009, 8:4 by DebbieTeach

Wow!!! What a huge task for the three people on site!! Thank you to all the organizations who are helping. Good will prevail.

Posted February 28, 2009, 2:5AM by carrie_fosters

This picture both breaks my heart and gives me hope. Thank you, BF and Noah's wish, for heeding the call from the overwhelmed in Missouri.

Posted February 28, 2009, 11:10 by kellio

Update! The dog we called Sammy is actually called "Oompa." He's listed on the River Valley Puppies Kennel website. The best news is that he's now safe in Kansas City with ESRA: http://www.springerrescue.org/

More news coming soon!

Posted March 01, 2009, 10:15 by dionie

Why would someone need to have this many dogs to be a breeder? Hounds are great dogs and they sure deserve better than this. It is time to stop this insanity with legislation that makes it impossible to breed more dogs than 10 at any given time and only with licences that cost a big chunk of change.
Rescue resources are stretched to the limit, it has gotten out of control.

Posted February 28, 2009, 2:46 by tamarad

This breaks my heart too :-(( What really bothers me is that this is just one group that we KNOW about--I worry about all those out there that we don't.