Update Sept 27, 2010 from Facebook page which was set up by the rescue organization to help the 2 dogs:
UPDATE: After further investigating the information provided to us, it was found the owner is NOT a deployed soldier. Upper Management from the shelter launched an in-depth investigation and thanks to Ruth we were able to talk to the person who surrendered the dogs. All information has been verified and we are 100% positive the dogs belonged to the person that turned them in. Due to foreclosure and the possibility of them moving overseas, he felt he had no alternative but to surrender his dogs. We will not point fingers on who is to blame for this story as it is counterproductive in finding these beautiful labs a forever home.
We would like to thank all the people that searched and contributed to finding the truth. A HUGE THANK YOU to Melissa and Val and their staff at Boulder Falls Pet Resort for loving these two and taking such great care of them. Wyatt and Storm are now available for adoption. They will be placed together as they are litter mates and have spent their whole lives together.
If you are interested in adopting this wonderful duo please email helpingorphanedhounds@gmail.com for an adoption application.
Arizona - Two Yellow Labradors recently found themselves in a precarious position. The dogs, owned by a soldier currently serving in Iraq, had been in the care of a friend of the deployed soldier. The couple caring for the dogs was entrusted with the dogs care until the soldier returned from duty.
Dogs cared for by a friend, and therefore safe - right? Not so fast. Apparently, legal guardianship was transferred to the friend for vet purposes, and the friend had a wife with allergies.
Despite being entrusted with the dogs' lives by a man off serving his country, the friend chose to turn the 2 dogs over to the Pinal County Animal Care and Control, rather than finding the dogs a guaranteed safe haven.
Thankfully, the shelter took pity on the 2 dogs, and contacted Helping Orphaned Hounds for help. Had they not, the dogs would have had only 24 hours to either be adopted or euthanized because they were considered to be an owner surrender to the shelter facility.
Boulder Falls Pet Resort wants to see the dogs reunited with their true owner and is currently housing them for free until every effort has been made to make that reunion possible. The rescue volunteers desperately want to contact the deployed soldier to let him know that his dogs are safe, and that they will be held until his return, but they have no way to contact him.
The friend that surrendered the dogs to the shelter refuses to release the soldier's name - merely stating that the person is deployed to Iraq. The public's help is needed to help locate the owner of these dogs. Someone is bound to recognize the dog's beautiful faces and can help to get word to the soldier to let him know what has transpired.
The dogs are approximately 2-4 years of age, one male, and one female. One dog is named Wyatt and the other is named Storm. If anyone has information about the person that owns Wyatt and Storm, they are asked to contact Rhonda Wagner Kuehn at Helping Orphaned Hounds at 406-697-5975.
A Facebook group has been established for Storm and Wyatt. Please click here to stay updated on any progress made.
Please circulate this article and ask others to do the same. The more people that read about Wyatt and Storm, the better the chances of a happy reunion.
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Comments
Uhmm yeah...what kind of "friend" is this guy if he can't even say the guys name?....thats BS....at the very least say what unit he belongs to then at least you would have a lead to go from in finding the servicemember. What crap.
It is for the safety of the soldier. I wouldnt give the name either, although I wouldn't have given the dogs away in the first place.
Would help to know what post the Soldier is stationed at. Then you could figure out which units from that post are deployed. That way you could contact the units on that post and let them know what is going on. They could send a message to the units deployed and maybe get a response from the Soldier.
Safety of the soldier, my foot! This guy is trying to cover his rear end, because he knows he'll get chewed a new one when his now-ex-friend returns from Iraq. As a veteran, this story makes me even more angry. These dogs are like family to that soldier. The "friend" should have had his wife get allergy shots, or at the very least contacted the soldier & asked who else he should turn the dogs over to. There's also Operation Noble Foster, which could have helped temporarily place the dogs. That guy's actions were inexcusable, & his refusal to provide a name makes a bad situation worse...
what kind of friend just up and gives another persons animals away after they have entrusted their pets to you until come home? There is medicine that can be bought to put on animal's for people who have allergies to pets. This man is fighting for you and your country and you can not take care of his dogs until he return. What goes around comes around. These babies are his family what the hell.
Give the shelter the mans name and where he is stationed in the states, and let them contact American Red Cross to get the information to him. There are ways to do this right.......................We all need to help, how would you like for this to be done to you. Hell give me the information and I'll work through USO, March For Honor, and all sites so this man can see this somehow. Come on America help get this man and his dogs back together. And if for some reason and heaven forbid the guy who gave the dogs up is lieing about them belonging to a solider serving his country u should be charged.
Contact the red cross with the soldier's name and rank and they will be able to notify him. Thank goodness for good people like the ones that rescued these dogs!
You wouldnt give his name because of safety reasons??? Hello are you dumb or just stupid. There is no more OPSEC when it comes to locations when in country. Quite honestly it sounds like a sham to me. Sounds like the "Friend" was the actual owner and just couldnt take the dogs anymore. He decided to make up this elaborate story so someone would take pity on them. Sc*mBag!!!!
Posted to my fb. As a person local to that shelter, everyone local knows that shelter has a bad history. a friend my ass. grrrr
The Authors facts are wrong. I called the Pinal county animal control. It wasn't a soldier.
Throwing the military into an already hot button issue is careles.
umm . any reason they cant just ask the vet who's dogs they are? doesnt seem very difficult
Have the soldier contact the non-profit org that takes care of their dogs through foster families while they are serving:
guardianangelsforsoldierspet . org
Why did he even agree to care for them, if his wife was going to get mad? (allergies, yeah right)
I wonder if they are microchipped?
That's a good idea. If they are, then the shelter could find out that way. If they have his name, then they could look for him.
WHAT A HEARTLESS FRIEND, COULDN'T HE CONTACT THE SOLDIERS FRIENDS OR FAMILY ? EVEN IF HIS STORY IS CORRECT, WHY WOULDN'T YOU RELEASE YOUR FRIENDS NAME ?
WHAY STORY WILL HE TELL HIS FRIEND ABOUT HIS DOGS ?
Why didn't he try to contact the friend who owned these dogs, Why not release the name, so someone else could contact the owner.
The guy is scum
Ahole is more like it. Not friend. The wife has an 'allergy'. Yeah right. They're probably still being send monthly check for the care of the two dogs. I bet she's not 'allergic' to that.
I think the guy's story is a ruse just so the dogs get better care. Why not give the soldiers name if story is true? Doesn't make any sense to me.
Maybe he is afraid to give the name out, maybe the soldier didn't make it. I can't believe they can't even give another friend or family member's name to the dog care center who has them.
This is horrible, We just need to share this article with everyone we know, in hopes of finding some who knows these beautiful dogs. Everyone is connected in one way or another. If you have a facebook/myspace, etc post this there, then ask your friends to post it, etc., Enough public outcry and the friend may release the name, or a friend of a friend may know who the friend is.
The "friend's" name should be released. This will help people identify the soldier in Iraq.
I would hope someone is calling around to all the vets offices in the area from where these babies came from! Hopefully they have been mircrochipped and if not could they not be described to the vets offices, or better yet, physically taken to the vets offices in hopes of being recognized? If they can be recognized its just a matter of a phone call to the base command office to let the service member know of his furbabies predictament. These are actions that are the least anyone can do for these two babies. And for the "friend" that did this, with friends like you, this man doesn't need enemies!
I was telling my husband about this during dinner & pretty much said the same thing (and I hadn't read your comment until now). I told him that if someone could compile a list of all the vets in the area, divide that list up among people willing to place some phone calls, I'll bet they could find the owner's name. I told my hubby that even though we live halfway across the country from these dogs, I'd take a portion of the vet list & start making phone calls.
I also said basically the same thing - that if this guy is a "friend" then I'd hate to see an enemy.
he should have told her to suck it up and take an allergy pill, considering having the dogs would only be short term anyway
I wonder if the soldier really exists. The man was probably dumping his own dogs an thought the other story sounded better. Lots of people dump thr own pets an say they were strays etc to avoid criticism or paying surrender fees.
I fostered a dog and a couple "adopted" it, 3 days before Christmas '09, I get a call from the pound and they reported it as a stray. It was linked back to me because I paid for the immunizations before I fostered her. She ended up in a good home. :)
That's what I was wondering. 13 years ago we adopted a border collie puppy that was turned in as *stray*. Yea, right. stupid breeder had extra pups so they said it was a stray. People make up these kind of stories all the time.
Something about all this seems strange to me. Why would the "friend" not disclose the soldier's name? And if the soldier turned the dogs over to the friend, where are their collars from the original owner that would have his phone number and address on them? And don't they have to fill out some kind of paper work for legal guardianship of the dogs to get transferred? Who witnessed this transfer of legal guardianship, and why can't they get a hold of those people? They need to do some serious digging into this "friend's" story because there are a lot of holes. I think a nice fraud investigation is warranted.
This story about owner being deployed sounds real fishy , since the so-called friend refuses to give the owners name to the shelter. Why would this guy go out of his way to make finding the owner so hard ???
THAT IS NOT THE DEFINATION OF "FRIEND!"
HOW COULD THEY?? MAKES ME REALLY ANGRY!!!!!!
THANK GOD FOR THE PEOPLE AT H.H.H. AND GOD BLESS THEM!!!!!!!!!
I CAN NOT WAIT TO READ ABOUT THE REUNION!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.
I HOPE THAT THE THIS GUY DOES NOT REMAIN FRIENDS WITH THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!
WHAT HAPPEN TO THE 'TRUST", "FRIEND" PART?!?!?!
How about contacting whoever the vet was? Surely they have the original owner's info on file!
#1 is she really allergic? #2 just how much money is the soldier sending to take care of his dogs? And let me add that NOT knowing the wife was allergic makes me wants to ask, "When did he marry her, after 3 days and they were only married for 5 by that point???
If you at least had the service person's name and what branch ... you could contact the Red Cross and ask them to contact the service person and relay your message...
I think this is bogus. I do not believe these dogs belong to a soldier. I believe the owner was the man who surrendered them. However, why he felt the need to concoct such a BS story is anybody's guess.
I wonder if the story is bull$***. I have sadly heard of people using the events in Iraq and Afghanistan to explain away poor behavior. Sadly, I know someone that uses that excuse all of the time. And he is not going to be deployed. Its disgusting. I am just glad these dogs are out of his hands.
I currently live in AZ and my husband in in Iraq. We are circulating the ad to everyone. I have faith we will find the owner soon. I am fostering 2 cats for a deployed soldier....I don't understand how anyone can just turn their backs on the animals like this.
Thank you for actually trying to help rather than just criticizing.
If the soldier lived on a military post/base, the dogs are required to be microchipped. I would assume by now someone would have thought to check for one. What a jerk of that "friend" to no even release a NAME!
Even if he doesn’t live on post (sounds like a single soldier so he probably won’t) he most likely has registered the dogs on post. we are circulating the information in 40th to see if anyone recognizes the dogs.
contact the local base or Fort and post the dogs pics up in the grocery and shopping facilities. spread the word there, someone will find him. what an ass that his "friend" isn't concerened enough to contact him and ask who else might be able to take them!
I have a very hard time believing this story.
To me, this sounds like someone who has decided to dump his own dogs for whatever reason, and who figured that giving them a sad story that appeals to peoples' patriotism and tugs on their heartstrings would make it easier for the dogs to be adopted quickly. I guess he didn't figure that people would be so annoyed with his excuse that it would make the news!
Can you scan the dogs to see if they are microchipped? If they are, I hope the soldier has up-to-date on where he lives.
My Neice is deployed in Irag....I am going to send this to her and maybe she can find him!
What city were the dogs surrendered in? If I knew that then I could help call around to find out who they belong to. I have a call in to a friend that lives in AZ. I hope we can find their daddy!!
I'd say that calling around to the local vets, and perhaps if the military has one on post call them too, and ask if they know any information as to the two dogs names Wyatt and Storm...
I have friends that live in Pinal country, so this is being forwarded to them foe circulation. Hopefully they will find who the soldier owner is and reunite them when their soldier returns from serving this great country!! What a pity that the person who turned them over didnt try to find another foster home! Some friend he turned out to be..Shameful!
Curious if they have called the dog's vet? Are the dogs microchip. Have you contact the local POST vet clinic to see if they are registered on post. I would also contact army times. And Stars and Strip to post an add. I am going to send to myy hubby and see if we can get a chain started with deployed soldiers. I am going to try to come up with a few other methods. This is disgusting and sad.
I should add did anyone do a dogster or facebook dog search
Dogs were surrendered in Casa Grande, AZ on July 16th. They were NOT micro-chipped and we have sent emails/faxes to most local vets, none of the vets have recognized them so far.
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