36 dogs rescued from unlicensed breeder

It is a Friday and so glad you're with us here on the Fox 9 all day at 11. We are going to take you back out to Milwaukee momentarily. But a big story we found out earlier this morning grabbed all of our heartstrings, certainly in the newsroom. The Animal Humane Society announcing they have rescued 36 dogs from an unlicensed breeder. This is in Cass County. That'd be Lakeshore, East Gold Lake, Walker, I think, that area. Thank you. Anyway, joining us now to discuss the next steps with these dogs rescued from this breeder, unlicensed breeder in Cass County is Liv Hagen, director of animal welfare with the Humane Society. She's been on the Fox 9 Morning News many, many a time. Liv, good to see you. And thank goodness these pups are in your hands now. Good morning. Hi, Tom. Good morning. Great to be with you. And yes, we're thrilled that we have them safe and sound with us. They've been with us now actually less than 24 hours. So right away, getting them food, water, vet care for some of them right away, all the things they need. We're working on meeting those needs. Oh, look at that sweet pup next to you. Oh, my goodness. Look at that face. What kind of conditions did you find these three dozen pups in? Yeah, unsafe and unsanitary, there were about, so as you said, we took in 36, there were about 25 of them that were free roam. And so they were running together, not only through the property, but also into the road and chasing cars and getting themselves in front of cars and just some really dangerous situations for these dogs. And so we're so glad that we were able to get them out of there. Right. And how did something like this, how do you learn if something like this, do you get tips? Do people call in and say, please come help these animals? Yeah, a variety of different ways we hear about cases. So, of course, we have our online reporting form, animalhumanesociety.org, if anyone ever needs to report any. The cruelty or neglect, we did receive a call, we've talked with local law enforcement about this case. We also were talking with one of our rescue partners who are up in that area that knew of this case. This is a case we've known about for a couple of months actually that we've been working on. We can't always respond right away to some of these cases, some of them take a little bit more time, the situation became more dire recently. When essentially all of the dogs got out and they started free roaming. They started interfering with community members. And so that's when we were really able to take action. And when the owner recognized that they were in a situation that they really needed help. Okay, so they were amenable to this happening at this point. Got it, well now what happens from this point on we'll get them cleaned up and fed and shots and that kind of thing. Exactly. So everybody will get exams. They'll get sterilization surgeries. If there's any additional medical care, behavioral care, these dogs have not. met many people in their life. They don't know what a leash is. Leashes are very scary. A lot of them haven't really lived in a house. Some of them are free roam. Some of them are living outside in pens. And so a lot of these dogs are very, they're very short on life experiences. And so building trust is very, very important showing them, hey, we're here to help. We're here to meet your needs. We're here to care for you because it can feel very overwhelming and And very scary for dogs that really We don't know people in that close companion way that we think of our pet dogs. And so some of these dogs are going to have longer roads to recovery, long more behavioral needs, more medical needs, but we're getting to work on And I'm getting them the medical and behavioral care that they need. Right, and so will some of these dogs, will they be with some of your foster folks who work with you or what's their situation for the next few days and weeks? Potentially, so the next couple of days are gonna tell us a lot about what next steps for each individual dog looks like. And we have dogs ranging from A couple of young puppies like this girl that's hanging out with me today, some young adults, juveniles, all the way up to some middle aged dogs as well. And so once we're really able to figure out what each individual needs are, we'll have a better idea of timeline. We'll have an idea of any need to go to foster again for that extra medical and behavioral care. We'll have an idea of some need to stay with us here in shelter for a little bit longer to get that care. So the next couple of days as we get through their exams and we start to really learn who each of these dogs are, That's going to be what really tells us what each of their timelines are going to look like and what each of their individual care plans are going to look like. Right, so it could be a while if people are thinking, well, I'd like to go and give one of these special pooches a home, a forever home. And in the meantime, you have dogs and cats there who need homes right now. We do, we have lots of dogs and cats waiting on the adoption floor at all three of our sites. We're in Golden Valley, Woodbury and Coon Rapids. So wherever you are, hopefully there's a shelter that's close to you. So if one of these golden types are tugging at your heartstrings, it's gonna be a couple of weeks until we're able to make some of those available for adoption. But remember, these dogs are going to come with the need for extra care, extra patience, extra training. So if you're kind of like, man, that's great. That's really cute. I think I'm ready for a dog. We have some other dogs that are maybe a little bit more ready to plug into your lifestyle right off the bat. So we encourage anyone to keep that in mind if you're thinking about adopting. Liv, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for the great work you guys do at the Humane Society and best of luck with our new residents there. Thanks so much. Yeah, thanks so much. We're happy to be here. You bet. Liv Hagen, Director of the Animal Welfare with the Humane Society. We'll get them home soon. I know we will.