We often get questioned (and receive countless horrific emails from potential adopters about how awful we are)  as to why we don’t adopt out to families who have pets, now or in the past, that are not spayed or neutered or don’t have a history of annual vetting or vaccines.  

Here is the answer to that question.   We daily face the heartbreaking choice to try and save puppies whose life threatening illnesses are 100% preventable and risk potential financial ruin on what their care might cost, or turn our heads, and let the puppies die.  

Until you have been on the receiving end of that phone call begging for help, or seen the photo of puppies in need and know that it is your decision that will cause these puppies to live or die, you will never understand how emotionally draining that choice is.  We are forced to weigh the known costs of the care against what could go wrong and cost more, against what we think we can raise, against if the dogs will die and it is a sunk cost, against how hard it will be to help the dogs who come next if we can’t raise the funds. 

In the past 30 days, we have taken that gamble twice and lost both financially and emotionally.   

We said yes to three parvo puppies, born to unvaccinated and unspayed/neutered parents, dumped by their family at a vet and then turned away by a local shelter.  Their care including two weeks in the isolation ward, transfusions, and supportive care by an isolation team to try and save them was $17,081.90 - Nova and Avatar made it.  Milton did not. 

We said yes to a litter of 6 puppies who had been born in a courtyard of an apartment complex to unvaccinated and unspayed/neutered parents.  They were loaded with parasites and after thriving for a couple weeks, four of them started crashing, and the care to try and save them, testing, medication, nursing care, feeding, and transfusions was $13,949.59.  Izzie and Zola made it.  Denny and April did not.

Rescue is hard.  We are called upon to play God and Financier daily and the choices are impossible to make: 

Should we have said no to either or both sets of puppies and let them die? 

Would we have said yes if we knew how much it would take finally and emotionally for DRSF and their caretakers to save them and how much it would hurt when 3 of them didn’t make it? 

At what point should we have stopped any of their care because we were in too far and let them die after providing them some medical treatment? 

How much is it worth to see Nova and Avatar find their forever families after coming so close to dying and would the families who adopted them think that their lives were worth $17,081.90? 

Vetting is not cheap.  World class veterinary hospitals run by incredibly compassionate Specialty Vets with cutting edge equipment to treat parvo and diagnose illnesses of neglect is not cheap.  We could not be us without LeadER and they go above and beyond professionally and emotionally for us every day AND provide us a generous discount on the services they provide us.  In the spirit of transparency, we have posted all 7 dogs’ vet bills here.  

We have gambled and lost like this in the past, but not so big and not so close together.  $30,000 in 30 days is a devastating hit and to date, we have raised less than $3,000 to cover it.   

We are here to ask your support in a donation in any size to help us make up as much as we can so that we can continue to say yes.  Please do not think any donation is too small.  For over a decade, you have given donations of $1, $5, $10 and $20 that have made it possible for us to save thousands of lives.  If everyone gives just a little, we can catch our breath and keep going.