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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Sunday afternoon, a chartered cargo plane took off from Missouri, bound for North Carolina and then Virginia. The passengers included some of a group of 200 dogs rescued from commercial breeders in Missouri last week.
“There are a bunch of large commercial breeding operations there,” Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA Executive Director Libby Jones told Cville Right Now. “(National Mill Dog Rescue) works to try and get those breeding operations either reduced significantly or shut down altogether. This is something they’re constantly having to deal with.”
The Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA was invited to send two staffers to Missouri to gain crisis response experience as National Mill Dog Rescue and the BISSELL Pet Foundation conducted an annual operation to encourage commercial breeders to surrender some of their animals to be re-homed.
Bradley Sharp, who works with the CASPCA intake team and coordinates transfers from local partners, and Sarah Wyant, the head of animal care, flew to Missouri in the middle of last week. They spent four days helping with intake, caring for and feeding the dogs, and assisting with initial health screenings.
Then Sharp and Wyant flew back onboard the chartered cargo flight full of dogs, bringing 22 of them back to Charlottesville. CASCPA was able to place most into foster homes Sunday night. Eventually, all the dogs will be up for adoption, though first they’ll undergo more thorough health and behavioral screenings, Jones said.
Jones said the dogs included a variety of breeds, from “Pomeranians and Frenchies to bulldogs and golden retrievers.”
“Basically, everything that’s cute and fluffy that you would see in a pet store,” she said. “These animals were all pulled from commercial breeders in that area. Surrendered so they can all go to adoptive homes and not be part of the breeding cycle.”
For Sharp and Wyant, the operation was a chance to “learn how to navigate a crisis response in a very controlled environment,” Jones said.
“We are deeply grateful to the BISSELL Pet Foundation and National Mill Dog Rescue for this chance to expand our team’s skills and training,” CASPCA Director of Operations Taylor Reinson said in a statement. “Large-scale emergency response coordination, housing, and care are critical skills that most animal welfare professionals rarely get to practice. What our team learns this week will make them and CASPCA stronger for every pet that comes through our doors.”
The team’s trip to Missouri served a double purpose. First, it rescued dogs from the breeding operations. Jones had one dog, a golden retriever named Katie, in her office with her Monday.
“She is the sweetest thing in the world, but she is scared out of her mind,” Jones said. “So, any time people would look at her or talk to her, she would go and hide. She’s never walked on a leash before. You can tell she’s going to take some time to come out of her shell and really learn how to be a dog.”
At the same time, Jones hopes stories like this one help raise awareness about commercial breeding and the need to end it.
“We really want to reduce the pet overpopulation crisis,” she said. “Part of bringing awareness to the fact that commercial breeding is still happening regularly is really important. We already have a lot of animals overpopulating our shelters. To keep breeding them at scale is just irresponsible.”