Sanctuary Says Pet Abandonment Becoming Common After 4 Dogs Dumped During Thunderstorm

Employees at Second Chance Animal Sanctuary in Norman were shocked after arriving to work to find four dogs dumped on their property.

It happened around midnight Monday during a heavy thunderstorm.

Two people were caught in the act on the sanctuary’s security cameras outside.

The sanctuary said all four dogs are severely malnourished, missing muscle and patches of fur.

“This is not a situation that happened overnight. This is a situation that somebody acted upon over several months,” said Rose Grimm, shelter manager at Second Chance Animal Sanctuary. 

On a 1-9 scale, one being the worse, staff said the dogs are at a 1.

“Their nails are so bad, they can’t walk on smooth floors,” said Grimm. “They’re actually having to glide because their nails are hurting them when they walk forward.”

The Second Chance Animal Sanctuary is a nonprofit that works to help save pets from being euthanized.

Staff said the COVID-19 pandemic has brought in a slew of surrendered animals to the sanctuary. It has now reached a breaking point.

“When those animals came into our system unregistered, it bumped four dogs off of our system and disallowed those four dogs that were on euthanasia lists to come into our program,” said Grimm. “We had to reject four dogs that we were potentially going to be able to help because we are at max capacity.”

Adoption is out of the question for now as staff focuses on a very long road to recovery for the dogs.

“It is going to take months for them to regain the weight that they are going to need in order to be up for adoption,” said Grimm. “Getting them fixed isn’t even on the schedule.”

Three of the four dogs will be heading to foster homes.

The nonprofit operates solely on donations. If you’d like to help, visit Second Chance Animal Sanctuary’s website.