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Young Gunz Kennel abandons 40+ dogs, others dead. Help us help those providing care for survivors

By Eric Forrest on May 8, 2018

Rescue is paradoxical, like many things. Many generous people do good work for animals, but they wish they didn’t have to. In fact, we all wish there was no need for rescue. We wish the only animals in shelters were severe cases that we could rehabilitate and place in loving homes. Surely, the Nebraska Humane Society wishes intake was 10 animals per year, not tens of thousands.

As long as some people continue to fail animals, other people will come in to make things better. That’s both the good news and the bad. Rescue and shelter operations in our community are constantly heralded as miracle-working, good-natured, life-saving groups (and they deserve the praise), but for every volunteering good Samaritan, there’s someone else out there mistreating or abandoning animals.

This week’s news of Pottawatomie County law enforcement having to remove over 40 dogs from a breeding/training/boarding facility (three of the dogs dead, not to mention the nine others unaccounted for) is a perfect example of the bad that turns to good in rescue.

Young Gunz Kennel, located on a piece of land near Oakland, IA, says on its Web site that it “specialize(s) in breeding and training top tier Pointing Labrador Retrievers.” The business site says it doesn’t “settle for mediocrity,” and that “When it comes to pups born here or dogs in for training, we treat every one of them as if they are part of the family and our own. Making sure they have a clean, safe environment to stay, that way they are not stressed when it’s time to train and go to work.”

Recent events have indicated that the dogs bred, boarded, and trained at Young Gunz were not clean, safe, and unstressed. In fact, some are dead, some are missing, and others are sick. The owner of the business, Dustin Young, says he’s away with a medical condition and that he plans to “move on” after this event is over for him. If all the dogs he was charged with caring for could move on, that’d be great. Unluckily for them, they don’t all have that chance. Read more from Young here.

In the same article linked to above from the Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Midlands Humane Society is mentioned as a benefactor for some of the malnourished, sick but stable survivors. The shelter needs help with these animals and all others it helps, so please visit this site to see what you can do.

What this situation reinforces for us is two-fold. One, we know that there are irresponsible people who have animals under their care, though it should never happen. Rescue will step in to care for the animals, which is great, but soon after things settle down with these dogs, there will be more to save from other humans that fail them, which is less than great.

Secondly, as Midlands states in the Nonpareil article above, our community is great at stepping in where someone else has checked out. We’re thankful for them and proud to be a platform to encourage others to be of help. The best thing we do here on Pets in Omaha, we feel, is help those who help the animals. If you can be a helper, we and the entire community would be appreciative.

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