Public steps up to help dogs

PALMER — With a week of shelter life behind them and many more to go, the 157 dogs seized from a Willow-area breeder are returning to health and their caretakers are adjusting.

“They’re pretty well getting the routine down,” Mat-Su Borough Animal Care and Regulation Manager Richard Stockdale said Monday.

The dogs were seized Jan. 10 from a Montana Creek area property. Their owner, Frank Rich, now faces 50 criminal counts of animal cruelty since the borough says the dogs were all starving, thirsty or dead.

Stockdale said all of the dogs are eating more food and keeping it down. The borough said in a press release that six newborn puppies rounded up in the seizure have doubled in weight.

Stockdale said that with all the charitable giving from the Valley and beyond — there are reports of Anchorage and even Homer efforts to help the dogs — there are a few things the animal shelter no longer needs.

Thanks to the efforts of students at the Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer, who nailed together 80 doghouses, the shelter probably has all of the doghouses it needs and materials to build them. And they don’t need zip ties or tarps anymore.

A needs list on the borough’s website says the shelter could still use some new dog nail clippers, canned food to use in administering medications, storage totes with lids, grooming razors and grooming razor blades. Daily updates on the dogs are available on a dedicated borough webpage at matsugov.us/animalcare/news.

Stockdale said the borough also has been successful in getting adoptable dogs out the door to make room for the malamutes and huskies taken from the breeder, which have to remain at the shelter as evidence until the court case against Rich reaches its conclusion. The shelter is set up in pods — essentially rooms full of dogs — with 11 kennels in each of six pods.

“I think we’re using a total of four of the pods,” for the seized dogs, Stockdale said. “We’re doing multiple dogs in those because they’re bigger, way bigger than on the chain.”

But that doesn’t mean people looking for dogs shouldn’t stop by. The shelter will continue to offer reduced fees on adoption — $79 for dogs that haven’t been spayed or neutered and $17 for dogs that have — through the week.

Also helping with that effort to make space is the Valley’s network of rescue organizations. Julia Durand with Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue said her group pulled 12 dogs from the shelter last week. She said her group fosters dogs that people can adopt. They can all be found at the group’s website, akdogandpuppyrescue.com.

Like Stockdale, Durand said she was impressed with how the Valley stepped up to meet the challenge.

“I’ve just been really, really happy with the outpouring of support we’ve had over the last few days,” Durand said.

Stockdale said the shelter is figuring out what to do about its depleted supply of medicine.

“We have a supply, but we went through a huge amount of the supply already so we’re looking at contacting through some of the specialty groups” or charitable organizations that might be willing to help out with some donations, he said.

He said monetary donations passed over the front counter at the shelter have to be appropriated through the borough assembly, which generally takes time. The shelter advocate fund that Durand and Linda Henning of Alaska Dog News set up at Wells Fargo and which, as of the last update, held more than $12,000, should shorten that wait time, Stockdale said, since Durand and Henning can use the money to buy supplies to give to the shelter.

Similarly, Alaska Mill and Feed announced it had received $40,000 in donations in the form of more than 1,000 bags of pet food, 250 bales of straw and $6,000 worth of gift cards, all of which it handed over to the shelter.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.