What happens when a tiny, over-burdened, under-resourced rural animal control agency gets called in to help with at least 20 dogs living loose on a property in shocking conditions? What happens if there’s also a hurricane bearing down? If Rose Bonney is the animal control officer for Florida’s Hamilton County, you ask for help – and thanks to dozens of agencies, organizations, and individuals, you get it.
Steve Carriere of Florida State Animal Response Coalition (FLSARC) was the first to respond to Bonney’s request for assistance. The dogs were owned by an extremely ill elderly woman who was living in her car in the woods with her dogs. She asked for help to save her dogs before being hospitalized herself.
Taking the dogs into animal control, which operates out of an old gas station, was impossible; the shelter has the capacity for 20 dogs and it was housing 24, with Hurricane Debby threatening the area with flooding and displaced dogs expected from the storm.
FLSARC pulled in more resources, including the University of Florida Shelter Medicine Program, FAAWO, Hamilton County Emergency Management, SPCA Florida, the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, and Florida Urgent Rescue. Karen Slomba of Slomba Shelter Solutions and HSUS Florida State Director Kate MacFall teamed up to find somewhere for the dogs to go.
But shelter space was impossible to find. In addition to capacity problems caused by the ongoing shelter capacity crisis, there was the complication of Hurricane Debby. Even shelters that normally were able to respond to disaster requests were out of room.
Keegan Spera, the Disaster Assessment Coordinator for the UF Shelter Medicine Program, said, “We were dealing with animals displaced by Hurricane Debby in other counties, and the Hamilton County situation came at a time when potential partner shelters were full because of the hurricane. Karen Slomba, who is part of our disaster assessment team and on the board of the Florida Association of Animal Welfare Organizations, started reaching out to potential partner shelters, but they were all full.”
MacFall wouldn’t give up, however. “She kept encouraging and inspiring us to go the extra mile for these dogs,” said Spera.
That’s when Slomba had a wild idea: Why not ask Cat Depot in Sarasota if they could house the dogs? She knew they had a large community education room in a separate building that would potentially make a great temporary shelter. Carriere contacted Diana de Veer at Cat Depot, and they were eager to help.
What inspired Cat Depot to temporarily launch “Dog Depot”? Said Claudia Harden, Cat Depot communications and development director, “First and foremost, Cat Depot is an animal rescue organization. Several of our staff members are actual trained Florida SARC volunteers, and many others have deployed all over the country for other rescue organizations. So Cat Depot is very much a part of the animal welfare world and is willing to help any animal that it can whenever we can. And when this arose, we just couldn’t say no.”
Throughout all this time, Bonney continued to feed and check in on the dogs on the property. MacFall would accompany her. Florida Urgent Rescue (FUR) agreed to trap the dogs and transport them halfway, and the Humane Society of Tampa Bay arranged to meet FUR and complete the dogs’ 250 mile trip to Sarasota, where the space now dubbed “Dog Depot” was waiting for them.
Eleven dogs were trapped the first long, hard, tick-infested day and seven more the second, meaning 18 dogs were transported to Cat Depot. Slomba, who produces “pop-up” spay/neuter clinics at shelters across the country, pulled in many of her veterinary connections to help and arranged for technicians from her team, Laura Miller and Joshua Guffey, to join the veterinary care team. She also reached out to friends at the Florida Veterinary Medical Association, who contacted their members. Veterinarians were almost immediately on hand to examine, vaccinate, and test the dogs.
The number of dogs found on the site eventually hit 30, three of whom were deceased. In addition to the 18 dogs who ended up at Cat Depot, one puppy was found hiding in a log, leading to a very complicated, multi-day trapping effort that was ultimately successful. FUR took him into their foster program. Six other smaller dogs are in foster or were adopted before the storm. Two more dogs were discovered several days later, thanks to game cameras set up at feeding stations.
Two of the deceased dogs had been there for a long time, but one of the dogs had been alive the day before. The UF Veterinary Forensic Sciences Laboratory led by Dr. Adam Stern offered to perform a necropsy to make sure she didn’t die of anything that could spread to the other dogs; sadly, she died of a gunshot wound.
While the outpouring of support from agencies and volunteers was overwhelming, there was some public criticism of the dogs’ elderly owner. The dogs were roaming loose in the woods around the property and were without question in trouble, but were being fed and mostly in overall good condition.
In response to a remark critical of the dogs’ elderly owner on Facebook, Carriere wrote: “This woman, thankfully, asked for help in the light of her horrific surroundings and surrendered all of her dogs to Hamilton County Animal Control. …She is now in hospital and rehabilitation care and receiving updates about all of her dogs. She is extremely grateful for the effort everyone has put in to save her pets.”
If the woman hadn’t asked for help, if Rose Bonney hadn’t asked for help, if Carriere hadn’t asked Cat Depot to go to the dogs, if this huge collaboration of dozens of animal organizations hadn’t said “yes” to those pleas for assistance, where would the dogs of the Hamilton County property be now? How many more would have been shot by disgruntled residents? How many fallen ill, succumbed to heartworm disease, been hit by cars?
So what happens next to the dogs? Slomba has taken the lead on finding partner placements for the dogs, and organizations including Nate’s Honor Animal Rescue, Humane Society of Vero Beach and Indian River County, Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando, SPCA Florida, Helping Animals Live and Overcome (H.A.L.O.), Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, Leon County Humane Society, Humane Society of Sarasota County, and Florida Urgent Rescue will be taking the dogs into their adoption programs and in some cases providing additional veterinary care.
“Really, everything associated with this project is a giant triumph because it’s a perfect example that if we can figure out how to work together, we can make magic happen,” said Slomba. “Who would’ve ever thought a cat shelter would be the ones to take in these dogs? Who would’ve thought that a very busy shelter in Tampa would offer to transport the dogs halfway? This huge collaborative effort was driven just by one idea: We can’t give up on these dogs. And thanks to the dedication of everyone involved, we didn’t.”