Saving Abandoned Hounds - Quarter One

Virginia is home to thousands of amazing Hounds that are largely used for hunting purposes...and so often callously dumped after hunting season or when a dog no longer wants to hunt due to age or neglect.

Like old couches, they are dumped along roadsides or in shelters' nighttime drop boxes and pens. They often have intestinal parasites, heartworm, arthritis and other painful ailments due to years of neglect.

It is one of the most heartbreaking sights to see, walking the aisles of a shelter and seeing these animals with their soulful eyes so exhausted and sad and knowing they had been treated not as loving animals but as a means to an end.

Shame on the hunters who do this. They leave shelters across Virginia having to make horrible decisions when Hounds fill up the space, preventing space for existing or new dogs coming in that then face euthanasia. 

Homeward Trails is constantly looking for ways to help more Hounds - through adoption programs that waive fees for Hounds - HT's Helping Happy Hounds program - to facilitating greater relationships between animal control officers, shelters and hunters to allow these Hounds to get the medical care and housing they need while we work to find them foster or adoptive homes and prevent mass euthanasia at the shelters.

It is time consuming. It is expensive. It is hard work. But Virginia's Hounds deserve better. 

Each quarter we are aiming to secure $5,000 to go specifically towards helping these Hounds - for medical care, heartworm treatment, emergency housing and more.

Please support our efforts to help them.