Sonya Childs, owner of Dog Dynasty in Santa Fe, Texas, is desperately trying to find homes for the last 30 dogs in her kennels. As of Saturday, the small non-profit shelter has to close its doors forever. Before that happens, Childs wants to make sure that they have homes, instead of going to shelters where they might wind up being euthanized.
The push to find new homes for Dog Dynasty’s last residents started at the beginning of December, when Childs decided that she had to close the shelter down. Originally a volunteer at the shelter, she bought it from the original owner in May of 2014. Ultimately, running Dog Dynasty herself was too overwhelming; she faced more intakes than adoptions, and donations weren’t coming in. “I didn’t have a plan going forward when I took this place over,” she told a local TV station in December. “I just didn’t know what I was getting into, plain and simple, I do know I want the dogs to have a home.”
Those same stresses are the reasons that the founder of Dog Dynasty sold the place to Childs. It was started by a woman who wanted to provide a no-kill haven for Pit Bulls, but she began to take breeds of all kinds. Like Childs, she soon found that there were too many dogs and too little money and time. Facing burnout, she sold Dog Dynasty to Childs. “She took on too many,” Susie West of the S.A.V.E. Rescue Coalition said in December. “People would drop them off and say they would pay to feed them, and they would pay if she would keep them, and they would never come back.”
S.A.V.E. has been working to foster as many of the dogs as possible, but Childs and her volunteers are still left with too many that need homes. If they can’t place the dogs by the end of this weekend, the only option may be a kill shelter. For the rest of the week, they’re waiving all adoption fees for anyone willing to give the dogs a good home. “These are good dogs, they really are, and they just need a place to go and family to love them, and they will be so grateful,” Childs said this week in an interview with KHOU.
If you’re in the Santa Fe area and have been thinking about bringing a new dog into your home, consider reaching out to Dog Dynasty this week. Sonia Childs can be emailed directly at slchilds@dacott.com, and the shelter will be having adoption events at the PetSmart in Pearland on Saturday and Sunday. Good luck to the dogs and to those who have been taking care of them.
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