Florida Urgent Rescue: Saving Dogs and Building Families
Florida Urgent Rescue -- FUR – is on a mission to rescue dogs in kill shelters and other urgent situations, and match them with new, loving homes. FUR rescues all breeds, sizes, and ages, and acts as matchmaker to ensure each family gets the right dog for them. In its 4 ½ years, FUR has saved more than 1,400 animals.
Mike Merrill, a West Point graduate, retired Army artillery officer, and long-time tech start-up guy, is FUR’s founder and Director. He first began helping strays animals about 15 years ago.
“I started doing spay-and-neuter with feral cats near my office, and I would adopt them out when I could,” he notes. “I eventually started FUR, and never expected anything like this. I thought it would be just a few animals a month; I never thought it would be this big.”
The dogs that FUR saves often come from desperate situations; some have been shot, some have been thrown from a car, some are sick and starving from becoming homeless after a hurricane. Others come from owners who no longer want a dog, or can care for one.
“Some people don’t think it through, or don’t check with a spouse before getting a pet,” Mike says. “Landlords are one of the top reasons given by people who surrender -- they didn’t look at their lease or ask permission in advance. Sometimes people adopt a dog that isn’t right, or get a puppy who gets big and needs more exercise and they don’t have a yard. There are so many reasons people abandon a dog.”
After nursing the animals back to health, FUR, which does not do same-day adoptions, works hard to ensure their dog will get a loving, forever family. FUR doesn’t have a kennel that would allow people to go meet the dogs in person; the initial looks are virtual (e.g, information and photos on FUR’s website). But with the fostering process, FUR gets to really know each dog’s personality, and by interviewing the family about their lifestyle and personalities, increases the odds that it makes a good match. If someone wants to adopt a dog that isn’t an appropriate fit – perhaps because it needs a family with another dog, or needs to have a fenced yard -- Mike will steer the family to another choice.
FUR used to rescue cats, but now is solely for dogs. “We don’t have cat fosters, and we had a lot of difficulty getting cats adopted,” Mike explains. “There are other groups that do a great job with cats, so we decided instead of trying to do what we aren’t great at, we would focus on dogs. But we still do provide urgent transport for cats.”
Florida Urgent Transport is another important FUR program. It transports urgent animals, some from overcrowded kill shelters, to partner shelters in Northern states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Virginia, and New Jersey among them), where there is less overcrowding, and pet spaying and neutering is more routine.
The need for urgent transport is especially high during hurricanes. “That’s when there is a flood of strays, as people lose their homes or their jobs. Some shelters have to kill the animals already there to make room for the new animals coming in,” Mike explains. “So, we will transport 8-20 dogs up north to our shelter partners, and that makes room for the groups of new animals.”
One of Mike’s dogs — he has four of his own and currently fosters four — came to him after Hurricane Dorian. “She was blinded during the hurricane and survived for two months in the hurricane rubble,” he says. “She was a feral dog, never touched by human hands. Today, she has 70% of her vision back, and she is the sweetest little thing. She’s part of the family.”
The cost to a family adopting a rescued dog is $150 for an adult dog and $225 for a dog under 6 months. But the cost FUR bears to deliver a healthy pup to its new family is considerably higher.
“We spend almost three times more on veterinary expenses than we take in from adoption fees,” Mike notes. “On average, our costs run about $400 per animal that we save. But we take in a lot of major medical cases, gunshot wounds, dogs that have been hit by a car, or abuse cases, and they wind up costing a lot more. Another issue is that more than 40% of the adult dogs we take are heartworm positive, and we pay for all the heartworm treatments. Those treatment average $1,000, depending on the weight of the dog.”
All FUR pets are spayed and neutered, depending on their medical status. Adoptions of puppies are provisional, to be sure all are spayed and neutered when they get older. FUR pays for those procedures out-of-pocket, and recoups a portion of the costs with the adoption fee.
“I tell people we put the “non” in non-profit,” Mike says. “And the expression ‘work expands to fill available time?’ Well, in our cases, rescues expand to use up available money.”
Donations to cover medical and other bills, and volunteers to foster dogs and help with transport and other events, are particularly needed now, because of the pandemic. “FUR’s fundraisers have been cancelled. Our biggest fundraiser is at TPC, where we typically bring in several thousand dollars, but it was cancelled after a couple shifts,” Mike notes. “Also, we support shelters that have been closed to the public and aren’t able to take more animals, but dogs are still getting dumped. Even worse, since non-essential surgeries were banned pretty much through-out the country due to lack of medical supplies, the strays were not getting spayed and neutered, so they are multiplying more…. Everything is upside down, and this has been probably about as bad a situation as you could find.”
“On one hand, what we do to save animals is very satisfying,” Mike says. “But, on the other hand, we get 30 requests or more a day, and we just don’t have the capacity to handle them all; we can’t be animal control for the county. We have to decide which dogs we can afford to take on and save, and I hate to have to do that math. But we have to continue our operations.”
“Sometimes it feels like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon,” Mike adds. “No matter what we do, there are more animals coming in. So, we are so thankful there are a lot of people out there like Brittany and Jon with Momentum Realty, who want to help both in terms of adopting a rescue dog, and in terms of giving back down-the-road.”
When people donate to FUR, 97% of their donation goes to services for the dogs; only 3% go to costs such as admin and taxes. Donations to FUR, which is an Adopt-a-Pet.com approved rescue, are tax deductible. They can be made via a link on FUR’s website or by mail to Florida Urgent Rescue, Inc., 7643 Gate Parkway, #104-27, Jacksonville, FL 32256. In addition to donating cash or gift cards, donors can purchase needed supplies through the FUR wish-list on Amazon, and through eBay for Charity, also through FUR’s site.
FUR also needs more volunteers in order to save more dogs. The biggest need is for foster families to provide a safe, loving temporary home; FUR pays for the costs associated with the dog. FUR also needs volunteers to help with its Urgent Transport program, especially during hurricanes, as well as adoption and fundraising events and helping with vet appointments and meet-and-greets with foster or adopting families.
Contact Mike at 904-372-3930 or floridaurgentrescue@gmail.com to discuss becoming a volunteer. Florida Urgent Rescue, Inc.
7643 Gate Parkway, Suite 104-27
Jacksonville, FL. 32256
904-372-3930
www.floridaurgentrescue.com
