Applications to adopt or rescue 36 border collies rescued from a Palm City home will open Sept. 1, the Humane Society of the Treasure Coast announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Martin County sheriff\u2019s deputies and animal control officers removed the dogs from a Palm City home on Aug. 10, following an investigation into neighbors\u2019 concerns about a suspected hoarding situation. The owner now faces 72 criminal charges, and the home has been condemned by the county.<\/p>\n
Director of Operations Lori Tucker said the dogs arrived at the shelter in poor condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they came in, they were very, very terrified. They were saturated in urine and feces,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cUnderneath the coats have been skin infections, body sores, we found wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tucker said the dogs are being treated for intestinal parasites, and many are still being spayed or neutered.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, all of them have had something abnormal with their reproductive anatomy\u2026 Some have been attached almost near the spinal column. It\u2019s been very challenging to spay these dogs,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s from inbreeding. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s \u2014 what that could be from.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the physical wounds heal, Tucker said staff have also seen encouraging signs of emotional recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 24 hours of being in our care, of just having clean water, clean food, and a bed, and a soft hand to touch them, for them to wag their tail was pretty tremendous,\u201d Tucker said.<\/p>\n
Because of the dogs\u2019 ongoing emotional recovery, Tucker said the adoption process will differ from the shelter\u2019s typical approach. Instead of inviting the public to come meet with the dogs, Tucker said she and the staff will review each application \u2014 drafted specifically for these border collies \u2014 and match selected applicants with each dog based on its individual needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I have a dog that I think would be really great in a home with young children, and I have a family that has, you know, a backyard with young children, that\u2019s a dog that I will select for them,\u201d Tucker explained. \u201cIf I have a dog that is very shy and that is going to do best in a quiet home without kids running around and maybe without another dog, I\u2019m going to match that dog up with that person.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shelter will also accept applications from animal rescues across the U.S. While Tucker said she is optimistic that the majority of the dogs will be adoptable, there are two that are still \u201cshut down\u201d and \u201cstruggling immensely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them to live a long, happy life with whoever is lucky enough to get one of these dogs,\u201d Tucker said.<\/p>\n
The shelter is also assembling resources to help cover the dogs\u2019 continued care, supported by donors from across the region who responded to news of the rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are indebted to our community. We asked for help, and the community heard our cries \u2014 literally, our cries for help \u2014 and they showed up in a big way,\u201d Tucker said.<\/p>\n
Tucker said adoptions at the shelter have increased over the past two weeks since the dogs arrived. The shelter noted that one of its biggest ongoing needs has been space to care for all 36 animals.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Applications to adopt or rescue 36 border collies rescued from a Palm City home will open Sept. 1,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-381104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}