Posted on 12/6/2007, 8:31:39 PM by Salamander
Washington state elderly woman loses everything in flood, needs help for herself and surviving puppies
I forwarded the note about Nancy to an all-breed list I'm on and was sent this update on her:
Nancy was at home and heard the dike break. Quickly, she searched for a box to put her puppies in ... hoping to evacuate A.S.A.P.
She located a Styrofoam container and transferred the puppies into it. By the time she had the pups in the box, the water was waist-deep inside her house.
She moved towards her door, thinking of her car and escape, but realized she could not open her door in this kind of water and, if she had, she may have just been swept away. So, instead, she made her way into her kitchen with her box of puppies and climbed up on to her kitchen counter.
She stayed there all night and most of yesterday ... standing on the counter and holding on to the box of puppies. At times, she says the water was only three inches below her mouth. The puppies would occasionally peer over the box but decided they did not want out of it and, thankfully, stayed put.
Nancy's neighbour was air-lifted from the roof or their home and insisted to the rescuers that they knew Nancy was at home. So, they came and punched through her roof to find her. She has minor injuries from floating objects and has frost bite on her extremities. Nancy is in her 70s. She said she willed herself to live to keep her puppies from drowning.
As she was being airlifted, she could see two of her foxhounds outside ... alive. The others were inside in kennel runs, two foxhounds and the Black Russian Terrier were in crates. She fully expects those dogs to be dead.
Nancy was taken and admitted to a hospital. One of her nurses has taken the puppies home to she and her husband's dairy farm to care for them. They have lost over 300 head of their cows to the same flood.
Nancy has lost EVERYTHING except the clothes on her back and these puppies ... and maybe the two foxhounds she saw outdoors. A donation drive for Nancy is being established through the American Foxhound Club.
For information:
Please contact Kelly & Judy Rea 706-754-4257
Also, if you live in this area and hear any word about these surviving foxhounds, Please let either the Reas or myself know. These hounds mean EVERYTHING to Nancy!
Thank you for your assistance!
Call up the Doggie ping list, please!
Thanks!
I’m glad the puppies survived. Hopefully they will find new homes with people who are NOT deliberately contributing to the pet overpopulation problem. I have no interest in sending money to this lady when I could send it to one of the thousands of shelters that are operating on shoestring budgets while desperately trying to house and find homes for the millions of unwanted dogs that dropped off at them every year.
Quite a story! I can’t imagine.
Has any of it been reported from a source that can be verified?
I’m in Washington, about 15 miles from this flood. But I haven’t heard this reported in our local news... doesn’t mean it hasn’t been, I just think it pays to be a little skeptical when the need is somewhat vague and the only contact is NOT a local number.
My dogs are rescue dogs and thats the only way I’ll ever get dogs again.
Why don’t we find out a little more before we decide an old woman is completely undeserving of help simply because she breeds dogs. Should NO ONE maintain and preserve purebred dogs?
Wow, you’re a right little ray of sunshine today.
It’s not like she’s got mutts breeding indiscriminately all over the place.
She is breeding dogs while millions of healthy loving dogs are being euthanized every year for lack of homes. Like you, she apparently thinks this is fine because the dogs she breeds aren’t “mutts”.
How about if the organizations that issue “papers” to these “purebred” dogs put in a requirement that the breeder must personally euthanize 10 healthy dogs at a shelter, and donate $1000 to the shelter, for each dog s/he wants to buy “papers” for? There are plenty of dogs being euthanized every day by stressed and depressed shelter workers, to set up such a system. When there are no more homeless dogs available for this program, then drop the euthanasia and donation requirements.
We’d find out pretty fast how many of the breeders of “purebred” dogs really care about “preserving the breed” AND are willing to look reality in the eye (right before killing it). Nearly all are doing it first and foremost for profit, and nearly all the rest are unwilling to face the reality of what dog overpopulation means to individual dogs.
Answer my question. Is there any value to purebred dogs? Is there a reason to preserve the lines of dogs bred for specific jobs like hunting, police work, herding and such or should the mutt breeders be the only ones producing whatever dogs they want?
Puppies??
The answer is YES. There said it for him.
I prefer shelter dogs to purebreds, myself. The few purebreds I’ve owned were seriously neurotic.
However, I have no problem with careful, considerate breeding. I do have a problem with dogs running amok, dropping litter after little of puppies nobody wants, which will then end up in a shelter being euthanized.
That area code is Georgia. Does seem kind of odd.
It’s not an either/or question. Sure it’s nice to have dogs of predictable sizes and abilities for different purposes, including pets. But only a tiny handful of breeds, and a small percentage of individual animals within each of those breeds, are being used for any important work. The pet dog breeding business is totally out of control, and I don’t see ANY of the breeders proposing any serious action about it.
NONE of the breeds which are being sold as pets and for recreational activities would be in any danger whatsoever of disappearing from the face of the earth if a 3-4 year moratorium were put on breeding them. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find a single breeder who would take that initiative with their own dogs or support a registry-wide or breed wide moratorium. When push comes to shove, the on-going process of occupying themselves with breeding some frivolous qualities into their “line”, and yakking about the “quality” of their dog-products with friends and neighbors and other breeders, is far more important to them than the millions of dogs who are suffering from neglect and being discarded like trash (euthanized if they’re lucky).
The puppy mills rely utterly and completely on the “legitimate” breeders to validate the whole notion that a “purebred” dog with “papers” is of great financial and prestige value, and thus create a market for their living products. The “legitimate” breeders are not willing give up profits or the fun of always having a houseful of puppies, in order to shut down the puppy mills. A period of 3-4 years where it was well-publicized that no puppy being sold as a “purebred” is from a legitimate breeder, would do wonders both to eliminate the huge population of homeless dogs headed for euthanasia, and to put the puppy millers out of business. And it wouldn’t do one iota of harm to the future of any breed. But the “legitimate” breeders wouldn’t dream of doing it.
You don't have to give, but you also don't need to be a flaming jerk.
And why should they? The more legitimate the breeder, the more quality their line is, the more insulting it is to say they should be the ones to stop, while the puppy mills and backyard mutts never will.
It's like saying there are too many shootings so lets all us good people voluntarily stop buying guns and engaging in recreational shooting until all the criminals stop shooting people.
The number of dogs being put down in this country is a tragedy. I have three rescues myself, and even when I did have a purebred show dog, I didn't breed him. I understand your sentiments. But they're misguided. Particularly when on a thread, not about selling puppies, but about a 70 year old woman who just barely survived a flood.
I think I already explained the “why should they” part. I’m sorry the woman had to suffer this flood and no doubt the loss of some irreplaceable personal items. However, anyone who is left penniless after something like this was breeding the dogs for profit and is not a reasonable candidate for charitable donations, given the huge number of underfunded and wholly worthy individuals and organizations in need of charitable donations.
Certainly, if she were a neighbor of mine or someone I knew personally through a church or other group, I would see fit to provide non-monetary personal assistance while she’s recovering from her injuries and lacking the capacity to help herself (digging through the ruins of her house to try retrieve items sentimental value, helping her navigate insurance forms, etc). But I’m not, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone else reading this thread is either.
I think more good can be done by reminding people of the underlying reality of people breeding dogs for profit, than by cheering on ignoring what appears to be a request for financial contributions to be forwarded to her (apparently via a group of for-profit breeders, rather than via a bank or similar establishment that might ensure proper use of the money). For all I know, contributed funds may be used to get her breeding operation up and running again.
I expressed my own skepticism about what the need is, but the idea that if she had a litter of puppies with her she must be therefore unworthy of charity is beyond bizarre.
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