04/28/2025
PLEASE SHARE MY STATEMENT!
This past weekend has been the best adoption event ever! EVERY DOG HAS BEEN ADOPTED! The support and love from everyone has been absolutely beautiful! I want to thank every single one of you for emailing me and spreading the word to have friends, family and complete strangers help these homeless dogs. The success of Mutt Rescue in its past eight years of saving just over 5000 dogs and getting them loving homes is because of YOU❤️
Please keep the pictures coming, showing me the happiness and success of all the adopt adopted dogs.
I will say that I am a very stubborn girl, and I am not letting this go! You will see me again, very soon. You will see my website showing more rescued dogs that need help and homes. I am not a kill shelter. I rescue from some kill shelters and non-kill shelters. I rescue dogs that have been shot at and have bullets in them, amputated legs, blind, dogs of all ages and sizes and dogs that cannot stay anymore with their owner due to financial reasons or house fires and other reasons from the owner! I pay out of my pocket to help the sweethearts, and it was taken away. Rescuing dogs is not a money maker. I have never once cut myself a paycheck, ever!
With my license not being renewed by TJO was wrong. There were a few mishaps that were corrected and paid for but they sgould not have shut me down. Mutt Rescue was set up for failure! They were a couple other rescues set up for failure and heavily fined and another was forced out of Chicopee, but they are thriving elsewhere! People helping rescues work extremely hard.
My facility is and was a staple in Chicopee and surrounding towns and surrounding states! There are always a few bad human apples, but compared to the over 5000 dogs adopted, I would say 95% are so happy and so many are repeat adopters.
I am not a veterinarian; people think I am. What I mean by that particular statement is that there is a contract that comes with each individual dog in its folder. There’s a 15 minute video that must be listened to before each adoption. There’s a hard copy of the video that is placed in each dog’s folder. Initials by the adopter must be placed stating that they understand the video and instructions on what needs to be done next AFTER we sit down with each person individually and talk to them about every inoculation and every deworming and proper tests that must been given and done to the dog and then we ask them questions to make sure the person is aware of everything and questions are answered as well. We spend between 90 minutes - two hours with a person before adoption finalizes. The person goes home with the dog’s file filled with all the information and proof.
If and when a dog is in need, if I see the dog is going to be in need of a veterinarian, the veterinarian is called upon. If medication is needed, the veterinarian decides and prescribes it. My job is to give the dog it’s medication‘s and follow the Veterinarian orders.
At the very beginning of rescuing each and every dog from the southern shelters who pay the veterinarians to get the dogs healthy and ready for transport, money is sent to those Shelters. Within 10 days of transport there’s another exam to approve the dogs’ to be on transport. Then transportation happens from the South to my rescue where the dogs immediately go into 48 hour isolation. After the 48 isolation hours have been met my veterinarian comes to examine and release the dogs for adoption. The adoption event happens that day! Again, I am not a veterinarian. If something develops in that isolation time, a vet veterinarian is there examining each dog and will put a hold on the dog and/or if something starts to brew with the dog, the Veterinarian is called upon again to come back. Sometimes the veterinarian automatically comes on certain days, and I know the day that she would be coming, so I have any dog prepared that needs to see her. Please remember that things take time to brew internally, and I am not allowed to be a veterinarian, and I am not allowed to predict things. I know that everyone of you can admit that you feel great one day and then you wake up the next morning with a sore throat. You had no clue it was coming. This is the same for dogs. This is where the Veterinarian and paperwork come into play and the contract. It states clearly that everyone should see a veterinarian of their own within a week and show all the paperwork that is given. There is the second health certificate signed by the veterinarian that the dog is within normal limits and is ready for adoption out of my facility. Everyone has 14 days to return a dog for any reason and get a full refund by me. People tend to prefer to complain versus return the dog or listen to Veterinarian‘s advice. Here is a good example: If a dog‘s ears are infected internally, they are given medication. It’s not medication for the exterior of the ear. It’s for the interior. Medication with instruction is given to the adopter. If something else develops, for example, when a dog has an ear infection they shake their head constantly throughout the day and the tips of their ears will become crunchy. Mature people will know and understand to reread the contract and all the paperwork and, yes, keep me posted as to what has developed, if anything but either return the dog for a full refund or see the Veterinarian and listen to what they say for a remedy. Mature people will know if it’s something that was newly discovered. If anything the dog HAS once the dog is adopted, it is noted and in a dog’s folder and has already been examined and released by the veterinarian. If it’s allowed to be adopted, that’s with approval from a veterinarian. The rescue should not be verbally attacked. Each dog comes with full disclosure.
What you see on TV with the sad dogs needing rescue isn’t the half of it. Not only do those dogs need to be rescued and vetted but let me give you three more examples:
1) my friends who own and run rescues in Arkansas communicate with me almost on a daily basis. What I’m told are things that will have you lose sleep and make you cry. Roscoe P. Coal Train, Have a Heart, Charleston, Searcy County, Heber Springs Humane Society, to name a few, our rescues I help. They call and email me and tell me about a mama dog outside in the freezing cold with her 10 puppies. Debby from Roscoe says she’s on her way to go get them. It’s in the middle of the night. This is a 76 year-old woman who works tirelessly seven days and 7 nights a week, with her daughter and one other person helping. Upon arrival, eight of the puppies are laying dead frozen. They are taken, as well as the two that are still alive, and the mama. Upon coming back to some warmth, one more puppy dies from being frozen. The last puppy and mama go through everything they properly need to go through in the south and then I am ready and waiting for mama and puppy to come to Chicopee and then I find them wonderful homes. Do you want that to stop? I don’t!
2) There are so many people that decide they want a puppy because it’s cute but then the cuteness wears off (in their eyes). They took mama and six puppies outside and got their gun and shot and killed the mama and five puppies. The bullet missed the sixth pup. The person just walks away. My friend was able to get there immediately and grab the one live puppy. The puppy is named Lucky. She has since come to Chicopee and is in a loving home.
3) About 3 months ago there was an owner surrender locally to Chicopee. It was a mama and it’s puppy. The puppy was between three months and four months of age. The puppy’s eyeballs were out of its sockets and then covered with a film that was not a cataract. I immediately got the puppy examined by my veterinarian. I made an appointment with the Deerfield eye specialist. I was given a multitude of eye drops to give into both eyes every day until surgery date. The surgery went well. Both eyeballs had to be removed. This little boy even wagged his tail the minute he woke up from surgery. I “gave” him to my friend, Debbie, who loves him to pieces.
By my license not getting renewed, I would not be able to help not only those sweethearts in the south but our own here in our City and surrounding towns and cities. I get a multitude of emails and phone calls from local people on a daily basis asking for my help. I cannot help them anymore. Other rescues are full. Euthanasia is then told to the people, not by me, that is what would happen if the dog is to be released to them.
Rescue is extremely hard work… seven days and seven nights a week. No holidays are off. nothing is perfect and no one is perfect, and I just want to continue to learn and to grow and be able to do so. Shutting down a rescue that has helped so many dogs should not have happened.
I have been in this City of Chicopee 62 years, born and raised! This is my home. I need my home and other surrounding cities, towns and states to help back me up to help these dogs.
If anyone has a negative comment… Keep it to yourself. The animals don’t need the negativity. They need us.
-Lori-
