On July 2, Brooke and Chase Moore were out walking their two dogs.
It was their normal evening routine, as they take their Yorkie and goldendoodle out on a two mile-walk every day.
However, on this particular night, they noticed something strange was going on at the end of their walk.
After seeing one of their neighbors with an Ector County Sheriff’s car and noticing a box filled with nine puppies, it wasn’t long until Chase and Brooke’s weekend got a little more interesting.
The nine puppies (all from the same litter) had been found abandoned and dumped near a bunch of cactus and in need of medical attention.
But because their neighbors couldn’t take them in due to limited space, Brooke and Chase decided to take over and help out the pups.
“We got to talking that one of our neighbors’ husbands found these nine puppies dumped,” Brooke said. “We started talking to the neighbor and they had a little one inside and were getting ready to move. With us not having any kids yet, we have a little more space and our garage is all finished out.
After Chase got his truck, the couple talked to their neighbors a little bit so that they can keep them up to date.
“Well, I wasn’t sure what was going on at first but as soon as the lady told me that they couldn’t keep them, I knew we would be taking them home with us,” Chase said. “My wife and her love for animals, don’t get me wrong, I do what I can to step in and help out….. it just makes me furious seeing how some people treat animals like they’re disposable around here.”
It wasn’t long before Brooke and Chase set up a playpen for the nine puppies in the garage.
“We got them some puppy pads and got them all spread out,” Brooke said. “It was before the holiday, which tied our hands up a little bit.”
Because it was late Friday night and because it was the weekend of the Fourth of July, taking the puppies to a regular veterinarian’s office was out of the question.
The only option was to keep the puppies safe and sound throughout the night before taking them to the emergency vet the next day.
“We got them home around midnight, so of course, we’re tired and emotions are high,” Brooke said. “When I was looking at them, they had super bloated bellies which were a sign of parasites or worms and I felt terrible for them. I knew that we had to get them into the vet as soon as possible. But midnight on a Friday, we knew that we were going to have to wait until the next day to get them in to the emergency clinic because everything else was going to be closed.”
Brooke said it was a long night and her husband Chase stayed up until about 3 a.m. cleaning up after the puppies.
“As soon as you got one clean, another one would make a mess and they would all run and slip in the mess,” Brooke said. “It was a long night and morning but I was trying to give each one a bath so that they wouldn’t get messy.”
The puppies are estimated to be nine-10 weeks old. As far as what breed, Brooke and Chase aren’t totally sure.
“They looked like some pitbull mix but we have no clue,” Brooke said. “All we know is that they need homes.”
The next morning, Brooke and Chase were in high spirits as they thought the hardest part would be to find the puppies homes.
“I was reaching out to past clients, asking if they need a puppy in their new home,” Brooke said. “We had four or five homes lined up, thanks to the help of the community.”
Brooke and Chase are realtors at EXP Realty.
Those plans quickly got scrapped when the vet told them that some of the puppies tested positive for parvo and worms.
“With how contagious that is, we couldn’t give them to other people and make them sick so it changed the directory of things,” Brooke said.
Doing home care for the puppies was out of the question due to the seriousness of the matter. They had to be in special care.
That was when they created the gofundme.com page to help out with the cost of the vets.
“We didn’t want money to be the problem with them dying,” Brooke said.
Their families started sharing it and it wasn’t long before they raised $3,000 of the $5,000 goal.
As of Wednesday morning, the page has raised $3,080.
People can donate to the page at https://tinyurl.com/9pen5dyw.
“We’re excited about that but originally, the vet had told us that it was going to be $1,000 per dog,” Brooke said. “And with nine dogs, once you do the math, you’re like, ‘ok, these aren’t my dogs but at the same time, you don’t want to see them die just because somebody dumped them.’ We didn’t know what we were going to do but we also knew that we’d need the vet’s help with at least half of them.”
For Brooke and Chase, it was a very emotional time but they were also helped out by the West Texas Emergency Clinic.
“Of course, I was crying and asking all of the questions,” Brooke said. “We knew that we didn’t want to get our two (dogs) at home sick with how contagious it is. The owner of the place was so sweet. She talked to us and we were getting ready to take six of them home with us but the owner was so sweet, she said since they have the room, they’d just keep all of them and the ones that are doing well, they’d do outpatient care and no charge for those.”
Sadly, one of the pups did die, named Fidget, on Tuesday, who was the sickest of the bunch.
However, Brooke says the rest are doing great and are still recovering.
The next goal is to find a rescue that can take over.
“They’re calling a few rescues in the Dallas area because of how overworked the shelters are here,” Brooke said. “I don’t know when they’ll be released. It’s a day to day update. But I’m praying that we can find a rescue that will take them and our part can be done.”
When asked if they were willing to keep one or two of the puppies when they’ve recovered, Brooke says that is still up in the air.
“My husband had an eye on a few of them,” Brooke said. “They are super cute and we may, in the end, keep one of them but we’ll see.”
There’s still a chance to donate to their gofundme page and Brooke and Chase are both grateful for the community’s support.
“It was super exciting,” Brooke said. “When we heard the cost of the bills at first, we thought how cool would it be to get the community together. It was cool to see. My family isn’t from here, they’re from Michigan and it’s great to see old high school classmates donate and previous clients donating. I kept watching it and seeing all the names. It’s cool to see it keep going and seeing that people do care. There are people who dumped puppies and then there are people who will help them live.”
Chase echoed those thoughts.
“I’m actually shocked,” Chase said. “I wasn’t sure what we’d get. This is my first gofundme page that I’ve set up and a few people doubted us that we could even raise money. We just didn’t know what to do. We weren’t going to let money stop us from helping out but we didn’t want to have to pay that much out of our own pockets. It’s surprising but also warming to know that people actually care.”
