Three puppies rescued on Vancouver Island have now been adopted to new homes, after they were sold out of the back of a pickup truck in Campbell River.
Miranda Kurucz, secretary on the board for the Vancouver Island Dogs Rescue Society, says they were told about a very sick puppy on Christmas Eve last year.
“She was so infected with mange it was actually a bacterial infection on top of that,” said Kurucz.
They found out, Noel (as the puppy was called), was actually part of a litter of 11 all sold out of the back of someone’s pickup.
The Society put out a call to try and find the other 11, as they knew they would be sick as well, and they found out two of the puppies had already died. They were able to rescue two more, Jax and Mya, but they never tracked down the other six.
All of the shepherd-cross puppies were from the First Nations community of Gold River and Kurucz said the three the Society rescued were infested with worms and fleas as well.
Kurucz said although this story has a happy ending for three puppies, it is indicative of a larger problem in some northern communities.
“There are communities that do have situations that are really bad,” she said. “It’s a lack of vetting that isn’t necessarily the community’s fault, it’s a lack of education.”
The Vancouver Island Dogs Rescue Society wants to encourage people to think about adopting a dog from B.C. before bringing one up from California or somewhere else. But if you do buy in B.C., know where the dogs are coming from.
“If you are buying a dog out of a truck, realize there’s a lot of problems that can come with that,” said Kurucz. “It’s really just supporting this unhealthy breeding concept.”
GALLERY: A happy ending for Jax, Noel and Mya (all photos courtesy of the Vancouver Island Rescue Dogs Society):
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