A Good Samaritan helped save six Australian Sheppard puppies suffering from methamphetamine exposure recently.
The three female and three male puppies had what appeared to be chemical burns and a greasy, filmy residue on their coats, said Chelsea Worley, founder of the East Mountain Companion Animal Project, which took in the stricken dogs.
“I’m not super familiar with drugs but you could tell that the puppy smelled wrong,” she said of the first animal rescued. “It smelled like chemicals or something burnt, sort of.”
The rescue operation began earlier in November when an EMCAP volunteer spotted an online post by a Sandia Park woman trying to sell six-week-old puppies, Worley said.
Since that is generally too young to begin removing puppies from their mother the volunteer did some investigating, she said.
“She tried out reach out to her at first, trying to assess the situation and offering information about rescue resources, or how we could help them get the mom spaded,” Worley said. “Because they were trying to sell them at such a young age, it seemed like they were just ready for the puppies to leave and she was hoping to rescue them.”
During the initial conversation it became apparent the issue was money.
“At first, she tried to bargain with the (volunteer), ‘I can sell these puppies for $400 apiece, but I will sell them to you for $200,’” Worley said. “At that point this was a money situation and the person needed money. She agreed to buy a puppy just so she could get her address and go out there see what the situation was and what was going on.”
Upon arriving at the property, which was strewn with children’s toys and debris, the volunteer knocked on the house’s front door.
The resident, however, refused her entry and eventually settled on $50 for the puppy.
“When she opened the front window, right away she could smell that something wasn’t right. It smelled like chemicals. She was very concerned about drug use,” Worley said. “She did pass one puppy out of the window, the puppy that was in the most distress. She gave her the puppy, took the money and made the phone calls right in her face. She was trying to get rid of the puppies for drugs.”
The volunteer brought the puppy to Worley and that’s when they decided the remaining pups needed to be saved.
“I’ve been a vet tech for a long time and I was very concerned,” she said. “I had not seen anything like this. It was really limp, lethargic, its eyes were rolling around. It was awful. What we did after that was called her back and told her we would buy all of them on the property, anything we needed to do to get them. Obviously you don’t want to pass your money to someone that was going purchase drugs, but my concern was the puppies.”
When they arrived back at the house, they found the woman nearly unconscious in a car, and a man nearby in a similar state.
“She was not super coherent,” Worley said. “But she said, ‘Just take them, they’re all dying, just take them.’ And then we made a call to the Bernalillo Sheriff’s department for a welfare check. We didn’t stick around to wait for them.”
Worley had the animals checked and each tested positive for methamphetamines.
“It was a pretty big mess for that first night,” she said. “But after the second day, a couple of them really started to come around. At that point, we concentrated our efforts on the two that were not doing so well. And now they all seemed to have recovered and are doing great.”
Each of the pups have either been adopted out or have been pre-adopted, awaiting for them to regain full health, Worley added.