For The Love Of A Rez Dog

I want you to see these dogs and this Rescue through the lens of a world outside of your own.

In the past three weeks alone we have taken over 40 puppies into our care. A random solo here and there, multiple pups at dumps and landfills, and several litters from homes where they would soon be too much for a family. Some already in trouble at these homes. 

At one house an elder helped us load a skinny litter and was happy for our help. We do not judge. We scoop. We take puppies, huddled under a makeshift porch, with bad weather bearing down, and we put them in our vehicles and we take them to our homes and that is our focus. As soon as we can, we get them to Veterinarians.

On the reservations, there are things at play in everyday decisions that many people would never even think of. Yes, there are free clinics on Rosebud more often than there are on Pine Ridge, but many people do not even have vehicles to get to them. If a clinic takes place in a specific community, there will be families who are 100 miles away from that. Overwhelm regarding a dog situation in a family comes into play. Households already struggling to get through every day, can make the dogs almost invisible, even on their own property. Drugs and alcohol getting in the way of decision-making can certainly be a factor in some families. Remote locations of many houses and trailers will keep the situation off of anybody’s radar. 

A generational attitude toward the dogs in some families is a hard one to change. How the dog situation is at a home, is maybe how it always has been and how it always will be.

It simply is what it is and we can only do what we can do. And I think what we do is a lot. There are tens of thousands of residents of these reservations and thousands upon thousands of dogs who are free roaming. Sure, some have owners, but many will be born not belonging to anybody and will die not belonging to anybody. 

When we are asked do we have it under control here yet?…my answer is oftentimes…

In some of big cities that you live in you might have 6 shelters. It is not under control there either, why would we have it under control in the poorest zip codes in America? Yours are behind concrete walls. Ours are visible. It would be like my asking residents of urban environments…Have you been able to close down your shelters because you have it under control where people are no longer surrendering so many animals? This is not a city problem or a Rez problem…it is a human problem. Let’s be sure we don’t expect first world dog solutions in a location with third world dog numbers and options. 

And so last week as the wind picked up, and the temperatures dropped, and the snow fell…There were no puppies under that porch at a residence where the overwhelm was obvious. And mama was safe too. 

Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations make up over 5000 mi.² of plains and prairie. Just know that there is no easy solution here, and there may never be, but by rescuing nearly every day of the year, we take over 2000 dogs and puppies out of the reproduction cycle and on to good care and good health. 

Still trying to recover from the anxiety, and wear and tear on our homes and vehicles and hearts, after one of the worst winters in a generation… Comes winter yet again. We will stay in motion and power through in an effort to save as many lives as possible, this winter, as we have done the previous ten years. Give To The Max is a fantastic opportunity for you to participate in helping us get through this winter, whether it is assisting with veterinarian bills for the many, many animals we take in every month, maintenance on the vehicles that we have that are truly road warriors, the cost of transporting these animals to Minnesota, etc. The services of our five veterinarians are to see to it that every animal is seen by a veterinarian before transport, many times, life-saving stabilization and surgeries needed as a result of car hits, gunshot wounds and even abuse. With the numbers that we rescue these numbers add up. And your donations whether large or small add up as well. Ride along with us in the form of your support in this very important time of year.

And on we go. 

And you…

please go with us