Time was running out for a two-year-old pit bull that ended up in an overcrowded local shelter.
Then, a sanctuary called Shadow’s Fund stepped in to help her find a forever home in a much less stressful environment.
Santa Barbara County Animal Services reached out to its sanctuary partner about Lady Kim, a pit bull that shelter operators say has been struggling mentally since entering the Santa Maria shelter 60 days ago.
Shadow’s Fund is a dog sanctuary that was created to honor a senior dog named Shadow, abandoned at just 15 and left tied to a tree.
“The animals who come here are the ones that nobody else wants,” Jill Anderson, co-founder of Shadow’s Fund said. “They're the ones who are thrown away, who are written off as hopeless, and unreachable. They're animals that really don't have any reason to hope, and we wanted to give that back to them.”
Some dogs with behavioral issues come to the sanctuary, get rehabilitated, and are eventually adopted. However, most dogs come to Shadow’s Fund and spend the rest of their lives there.
“Our dogs don't live in kennels,” the sanctuary co-founder said. “They all have little cottages or 12-by-12 rooms. They're all completely finished. They have couches and TVs and heated floors and large yards.”
Lady Kim came into the Santa Barbara County shelter as a stray dog, and in her time there showed extreme distress in a shelter over its capacity.
“A lot of our dogs spend over 20 hours in their kennels due to the amount of animals that we have here in the shelter and the timeframe that we have to spend with them,” Santa Barbara County Animal Services supervisor Justine Romero said.
Shadow’s Fund raised more than $2,000 in donations to create a living space for Lady Kim and moved her into her new home by her deadline date.
“Lady Kim is a dog who is really struggling at the shelter,” Anderson said. “Some dogs really struggle to cope with kennel life and she's one of them.”
The sanctuary still needs experienced fencers and builders to help finish the project.
“We're in the final stages,” sanctuary director Cody Rackley said. “We need to insulate and put up wall paneling and kind of prep it so that it's warm at night. And we also need a lot of help finishing the fencing.”
Anderson says they also need the community’s help to solve the shelter’s overcrowding problem.
“The problem is so big and so overwhelming right now that the sheltering community and the rescue community, we can't solve it by ourselves,” Anderson added.
Santa Barbara County Animal Services is still advocating for Lady Kim and she is available for adoption from Shadows Fund now, so if you think you can give her a forever home, reach out to either party.
For ways to volunteer to help out dogs like Lady Kim who need to be out of their kennels for the majority of the day, you can visit the link here for volunteer work at Shadow's Fund.
