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Beth Cline-Stroud with a puppy rescued in S.C.
Jessica Webb
editor@thesmokymountaintimes.com
When Beth Cline-Stroud at PAWS animal shelter in Bryson City gets the call that there’s an animal in need of help, there’s no doubt she’s ready to respond. Most recently, the call to action was to aid with animals found at a large-scale puppy mill of 166 dogs in Pickens, S.C.
PAWS partners with Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society in Sapphire Valley, who has a rescue vehicle called the HEART of North Carolina to respond to these very kinds of incidents. In total, the agencies brought back 42 dogs, mostly puppies, to western North Carolina for adoption, with nine of the dogs brought back here to PAWS.
Staff from Anderson County PAWS was on the scene and their director, Dr. Kim Sanders, reached out to CHHS Executive Director David Stroud for help.
“We’ve been great friends with Kim and her team for several years,” said Stroud. “We’re always happy to help when they call. This is our third rescue with them in the past three years but by far the largest. In fact, this is the largest rescue we have been a part of since we evacuated the Outer Banks SPCA of 72 animals on the eve of Hurricane Florence in 2018.”
While the two WNC agencies have helped before, this was a particular case in that it is such a large rescue. Given many of the dogs are puppies and breeds in high-demand, CHHS and PAWS knew they could help with sheltering and adopting out the dogs.
The dogs were living in chain-link outdoor kennels. Judith Brown, 68, was charged arrested with ill treatment of animals, released on bond, according to news coverage from Pickens.
The Pickens Sheriff’s Office, Pickens County Animal Shelter, Pickens County Building Maintenance, Anderson County Paws and Charleston Animal Society, were also on the scene, according to local news reports.
Most of the dogs are healthy and age from 1-2 weeks old to 10 years old.
“In addition to the size of the rescue, what is also noteworthy are the breeds and breed mixes that CHHS brought back to the mountains. “Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, Goldendoodles, and a few others. Some appear to be purebred, some are mixed breeds,” Stroud added. “Many of these types of dogs and puppies are breeds that we hardly, if ever, see in our no-kill shelter.”
Cline-Stroud said PAWS was happy to assist, as many of the larger shelters have been there to help when PAWS was in need.
“We knew we could help because the breeds that we were being asked to assist with are breeds that people are constantly asking us if we have at the shelter but we rarely, if ever, have these breeds,” Cline-Stroud said. “We knew it would not be a problem getting the animals adopted because we have a long list of names of people wanting to adopt Golden Retrievers, Goldendoodles, Bernese Mountain Doodles and Labrador Retrievers.”
Thirty of the 33 dogs at CHHS are puppies, some as young as six weeks old, and the remaining three dogs age in range from one to three years. All of the dogs at PAWS are puppies with the oldest being a Goldendoodle that is 10 months old. The rest of the puppies range from 5 weeks old to 2.5 months old.
“We are so thankful we could help because we always wonder, what if it happened here in Swain County? What if a large-scale puppy mill bust happened here, what would we do?,” Cline-Stroud said. “I know exactly what we would have to do, we would have to call on these larger shelters to help us. Swain County would have nowhere to house them, P.A.W.S. would not be able to take in hundreds of dogs at once, so we would be on the phone calling these larger shelters if they could come in and help us.”
The dogs are currently receiving any and all necessary veterinary care and will soon be scheduled for spay/neuter surgery. Once they are fixed, they will be ready for their new forever homes.
For more information, contact P.A.W.S. Animal Shelter by calling 488-0418 or visiting http://www.pawsbrysoncity.org/. The shelter is located at 57 Lemons Branch Road and is open Mondays-Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Friday & Saturday noon-4 p.m.