9 Investigates

9 Investigates challenge of rehabilitating dogs taken from hoarding situation

A local rescue group has taken on the challenge of trying to find the best way to help nearly two dozen dogs taken from a severe hoarding situation.

Furever Angels and its volunteers are used to saving dogs from shelters and the streets, but they said one hoarding case is like nothing they’ve ever seen.

Channel 9 watched as volunteer Merrie McGrath spent time telling Nick that he’s a good boy. It was all in an effort by McGrath to get the dog to relax, respond and trust McGrath. Nick is just a year old and won’t even look at her because he has lived his entire life with hoarders, locked in a pen with hardly any human contact.

The same goes for his brother Jack, as well as other dogs rescued, including Hailey and Lizbeth.

“Their whole life has been suffering,” McGrath said. “None of these dogs have had a normal dog life. They don’t know how to act like a dog.”

Twenty-three dogs in all were rescued by the Furever Angels rescue group from two elderly women who live in a trailer.

“They keep some in their closet and sometimes they chain them to the couch just to keep them from going out the door, and they have no idea that they’re harming the dogs,” McGrath said.

Allyson Ward, who has volunteered with Furever Angels for six years, thought she’d seen it all until she encountered the “hoarder dogs.”

“This is just a whole other situation where the dogs are just terrified and don’t even know how to be a dog,” Ward said.

Ward is currently fostering Lizbeth. She said achieving just the smallest interaction with Lizbeth took  a lot of attention.

Hailey has come a long way and is adapting, but she’s still skittish.

Jack also frightens easily while he tries to figure out a whole new world.

The dogs aren’t used to being outside, and for now, the volunteers don’t remove the leashes, worried they won’t be able to get close enough to put them back on.

Meanwhile, Nick stays in a quiet room where McGrath continues to help him. His preferred spot is in his crate, away from people. But she’s certain that some day, the scared and confused dog can be happy, healthy and normal.

“Success would be him allowing human touch and maybe even asking for it,” McGrath said.

Furever Angels Animal Rescue has two specific requests for anyone wanting to help the hoarder dogs.

The nonprofit hopes a professional trainer who has experience with severely neglected dogs will step up and volunteer his or her services. Anyone interested can email furever_angels@yahoo.com

The organization also needs donations of both money and supplies. Volunteers said the hoarder dogs had not received veterinary care, nor had they or been spayed or neutered. Financial donations can be made via PayPal through the group's website.

This graphic lists supplies that are needed: