19 puppies rescued from ‘dumping ground’ in South Carolina woods. Now they need help
A litter of puppies dumped in a South Carolina forest is safe thanks to a couple now determined to help the animals find new homes.
The 19 puppies were rescued after someone abandoned them in a wooded area near Holly Hill, according to the Rural Animal Volunteer Effort. Casey Whitehead, who founded the rescue, said the dirt roads behind her home are where people tend to ditch their unwanted pets.
“They use it for a dumping ground,” Whitehead told McClatchy News. “So we make sure that at least once a day we ride those dirt roads multiple times.”
She said she and her husband were headed home Thursday, May 26, when they saw what looked like birds scurrying in the road. They soon realized they were puppies and stopped in the pouring rain to pick them up.
“I get in the woods, and there are puppies everywhere,” she recalled. “I realized it wasn’t just two (dogs). There were way more than that. We start grabbing puppies and piling them into the floorboard of my car.”
The couple operates RAVE out of their home and are working on getting approved as a nonprofit, Whitehead said.
They took 10 puppies home then returned to the woods to make sure they hadn’t left any behind. That’s when Whitehead’s husband nudged her to check a cardboard box that was left in the area. The bottom gave way when she picked it up, revealing nine more newborn pups.
Overwhelmed by the 10 puppies already at home, Whitehead gave the newborns to another animal shelter in the area. She estimates those puppies were less than 12 hours old. One did not survive the night.
It’s not clear how long the dogs were in the woods, and Whitehead believes whoever left them there “didn’t want them to be found.”
“They had plenty of opportunities to drop them closer to (a road) where people actually travel,” she said. “They made sure to take them off into the woods, so nobody would have ever found that box.”
“I’m so glad they’re getting the attention they need because ... somebody knows something,” Whitehead added. “There’s no way that nobody knows where these puppies came from.”
After a week-long quarantine, the puppies are doing well in their recovery and some are ready to be placed in permanent homes as of Thursday, June 2.
“I have 10 dogs that need fosters, and we have multiple dogs that need adopters,” she said.
Holly Hill is about 70 miles southeast of Columbia.
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 1:21 PM with the headline "19 puppies rescued from ‘dumping ground’ in South Carolina woods. Now they need help."