Update on 60+ animals rescued in Muscatine

There’s an update on the animals that were rescued earlier this summer in Muscatine. Over 60 dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and rats were taken from a residence and placed with It Takes A Village Animal Rescue and Resources (ITAV). Our Quad Cities News spoke with Meagan Koehler, founder and director of ITAV, via Zoom about how the animals are doing now.

She said the animals needed a great deal of help when they arrived, from simple vaccinations to more complicated care. “Everything imaginable. In addition to the standard vetting protocol that we have to do in bringing animals in, like getting them updated on things like rabies, distemper and parvo vaccines, there were a variety of other conditions that were present. Some gastrointestinal issues, some much more complicated healthcare problems. One dog actually ended up with a diagnosis for EPI, which is exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and then also Addison’s disease. We saw the gamut being run, from something as basic as fleas to something that was like congenital defects, we saw it all with these animals.”

The group had to take legal action to get custody of the animals to provide more care, said Koehler.

“There’s only so much that you can do when you are basically just the care custodian for the animals. You can do those things that would keep your staff safe, like rabies vaccination, that’s an automatic. Unless they’re in immediate danger, like it’s an immediate need for their health to take care of a condition, you can’t do much at that point. You’re just in charge of housing them and providing food and nutrition and keeping them safe and clean and housed. We’ve had to wait to do pretty much anything beyond that.”

Taking in such a variety of animals forced the shelter to upgrade its licensing. “When we were on site that day and saw that there were species beyond what our licensing is, we immediately reached out to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship because that’s our governing entity at the state level,” she said. “We reached out to our inspector to say, ‘hey, this is the situation.’ We wanted to make sure that we were above board in our participation in that seizure with those extra animals. She said, ‘you can go ahead and you can take them, you just can’t get them adopted out until you have additional licensing.” The additional licensing is what’s known as pet shop licensing, but the group has no intention of selling or breeding animals. “That’s just what they require in order for us to rehome exotic animals.”

The process involved inspections, paperwork and money. “Even though we had already had a facility inspection that we passed, we had to have our facility reinspected, which we passed with flying colors. We had to pay for this additional license to become a pet shop. We had to get a new veterinary inspection agreement signed.”

A member of the group’s board of directors stepped up to help with the influx. “Luckily, we had Karen Hartman,” said Koehler. “She’s on our board of directors and she kind of specializes in some of these different species. She’s always had rescue chinchillas or rescue rats or Guinea pigs or whatever in her classroom in her elementary school classroom. She was well versed on the proper care and even some of the more expensive medical needs, specifically for the rabbits. The rabbits required a lot of round the clock care; at one point she was coming in, doing all of their feedings through syringes and administering subcutaneous fluids because some of these animals were in pretty rough shape when they came to us.”

There’s one thing standing in the way of these animals getting new homes, Koehler said. “We have to get them all spayed and neutered. This is our big hurdle right now; there has to be available appointments. We don’t have our clinic anymore so we don’t just have a vet right here in the building that can designate Monday through Thursday to getting them all in and getting them altered. There has to be appointments available. It is also an exorbitant amount of money when you talk about getting spay and neuter clinics elsewhere or expanded or appointments elsewhere.” Koehler says the bill to spay/neuter the animals could top $10,000. A lack of vets who will do the procedure on rats and rabbits is another hurdle the group must cross.

ITAV needs financial help to get the animals ready for adoption. “We actually started a fundraising campaign, it’s our spay and neuter fund . It is specifically to get these animals all spayed and neutered and ready, because other than that, for the most part they are ready.”

The spaying/neutering is critical because the longer the group waits, the more baby animals will be on the way. Koehler says some of the animals got pregnant before or shortly after their rescue.

The group is holding a fundraiser this weekend to help the cause. “We have a puppy yoga fundraiser happening this weekend at Weed Park,” she said. “People can still register; they can register up until the time of puppy yoga tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we get some extra faces at puppy yoga tomorrow. It’s just $15 a person for registration and you can register whole groups or an individual. Come out and hang out with puppies and get your yoga on.” Click here to register for puppy yoga.

Click here for the latest from It Takes A Village Animal Rescue & Resources.

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