Blue Ridge Canine Safehouse

10/01/2025

This is Virginia code… not simply local. There was a lot of talk about the laws regarding what is considered “adequate” for dogs in this weather. Please note a tether is never allowed in weather lower than 32F. The main reason for this is that tethers tangle. A dog stranded in a tangled tether could freeze to death.

08/01/2025

I’m so sad to wake up and learn that Karen Pryor has passed. She changed the landscape of our understanding of animal behavior and made huge strides learning and teaching ways to bridge the communication gap between humans and animals. “Don’t Shoot The Dog” was my most memorable dog training book and completely changed my approach to teaching dogs. I wish I could have met her. 💔 She can rest easy knowing she truly made a difference for science, for animals and for the humans who love them. And I’m sure she will have a hero’s welcome at the Rainbow Bridge. 🌈🐕‍🦺🐩🦮🐕🐈‍⬛🐈🐅🦭🐬🐋🐳🦜🦆🕊️🦅🐓🦃🐴🦓🐘🦧🦍🦒🐄🫏🐎🐐🐏🐖🐑🦙🦌🦝🦦🦔

With profound sadness and immense gratitude, we honor the life and legacy of Karen Pryor, a true pioneer in the fields of animal behavior and positive reinforcement training. Karen’s groundbreaking work revolutionized how we communicate with animals—and each other—leaving an indelible mark on science, education, and the lives of countless species around the world.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/4214rRG

07/01/2025

06/01/2025

Snow pics photo dump!!! Enjoy! ❤️❄️🌲

06/01/2025

FUNDRAISER TIME! Hey friends! The past couple months have been a little on the pricey side. We have some vet bills to pay off - Buddy, Summer and Nora. We also have a higher than usual draw on the electric bill to keep the kennel and cottage heated. Our goal is to raise $2,000 to start the New Year off right by paying off these debts from the old year. Read on if you’d like to know what your money is paying for 🙂

Buddy with the most boopable nose - rescued by Dogs Deserve Better from a 10x10 pen along with 2 brothers. The rescue retained 2 of the brothers who are more adoptable, and The Safehouse took ownership of Buddy as he needed an extensive amount of work. He’s currently with Chris at Southern Hospetality making doggy friends and learning social skills. Chris does very well with the shy, nervous dogs. Buddy took to him pretty quickly as he seems to bond more easily to men than women. Buddy has a financial sponsorship to board with Chris but we are covering all his vet care needs, including his behavioral meds which can be pricey. Our goal is to help Buddy over the hump of socialization by using behavioral meds and training, and getting him into a home where he can settle in. If you’d be willing to cover a portion of Buddy’s costs for vet care, it’s roughly $250 per month. If you’d like to open your home to Buddy, message us!

Summer the White Collie- an acquaintance called and asked if we could help rehome Summer as she was exhibiting severe shyness that couldn’t be managed well in her current home. I was able to make some progress with Summer and got her fully vetted (spayed, microchipped, vaccinated). We then asked Dogs Deserve Better to promote and rehome her, which they were able to do! Post to follow on Summer’s new life! After a follow-up vet visit, she is living her best life. Her vet costs were about $400.

Nora the goat - she and her sister Faye came to live with us 2 years ago after their farm closed down. Faye and Nora were older girls and needed a pet home, so we took them in as part of our herd. Nora started having seizures before Christmas, and after a weeklong battle with Listeria and Encephalitis, we had to let her go. Her vet costs were almost $700. If you’d like to help pay a portion of this in her honor, we would truly appreciate it!

Electric Bill - we have installed mini split units in the kennel and cottage which provide year-round climate control. The cottage currently houses 2 older hounds (Benny and Ralph) and one semi-feral girl (Peppermint Patty). They all live here as sanctuary dogs with no financial sponsorship. The kennel currently houses the rest of the sanctuary dogs, as well as several kennels open for rescue boarding. We have 2 sanctuary dogs who receive monthly financial sponsorship from their original rescue group. Currently 3 dogs doing short term boarding through rescue groups, and the remaining sanctuary dogs are either partially sponsored through monthly monetary gifts or unsponsored. The electricity provides comfortable climate controlled shelter to all these little friends, not to mention keeps the lights on. If you’d like to help cover some of the costs of electricity during these colder months, we’d truly appreciate it! The cost is roughly $600 per month.

Thank you for all your support, both monetary, and of gifts of items, food, blankets and the like. Thank you for all your shares and cares as well! We will put links to send money in the comments below if you feel the desire to give.

*Since we are starting a new year and some of you may not know us, we are not a 501c3. We run a barely profitable (and sometimes not profitable) kennel which serves to board rescue dogs, offer long-term sanctuary care for dogs with behavioral issues, and rehabilitate the ones who can be saved. We focus on these harder-to-save dogs since it’s a need in the rescue world which takes time and space that many foster homes can’t offer. We charge for boarding and rehabilitation services when a rescue can afford the costs, but often we take on many who can’t afford it and hope to make up the difference with monetary gifts from our supporters. And while many aspects of this may fall into a non-profit category, there are many aspects of non-profit regulations which we don’t quite fit (such as charging boarding fees, not using a board of directors, and investing money into the repairs on the kennel and land which are personally owned rather than owned by a charity with a BOD). Our personal commitment to the animals who live here runs deep and we hope our sincerity always shows in our posts and openness to serve the animals’ best interests. Thank you for always showing us love online!

01/01/2025

Faye and Jonathan would like to welcome in 2025 with Apple cookies. 🍪

01/01/2025

Winston was a very unique dog and I was honored to be a small part of his journey! Help Lab Rescue of Greater Richmond continue to save dogs like Winston!

With less than 2 days left of our End of Year Campaign we are just $986 away from our $20,000 goal! Can you help us close the gap?

Fundraising Highlight: Sometimes, our job is to find the right job for the dog.

Winston came to us as an owner surrender. Our intake process requires a detailed dog evaluation, which allows us to best match the lab with the foster home and ultimately, an adoption applicant.

We were fortunate to have Amy Swope at Blue Ridge Canine Safehouse perform Winston’s evaluation. Winston’s evaluation was very unique.

Here is a little of what Amy had to say:

• “Winston has a very high ball and retrieve drive. He is hyper focused on the ball. When there is no ball, he will hyper focus on treats.”
• “… protective over spaces he perceived as ‘his.”
• “He is what I consider to be a ‘working dog’ and would probably thrive in search and rescue, retrieve sports, detection games and maybe even dock diving or agility.”
• “Winston will be a lot to handle for an average pet home.”

We quickly realized there were several challenges to placing Winston in a traditional adoptive home however, Winston’s journey soon took an exciting detour.

Maysa Hamad, LRGR Owner Surrender Coordinator, reached out to National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) with a summary of Winston’s evaluation. Following a few emails and phone interviews with Sylvia Stoney from the Foundation, Winston’s village got to work!

Winston's first “job” was to demonstrate his abilities in eight specific categories and exercises sought by the Foundation. Winston did not disappoint! Amy did a phenomenal job working with Winston and submitting each assessment to the Foundation.

In late October, LRGR received an email from SDF… “I am happy to share that Winston has been approved to join SDF! Our trainers were impressed with what they saw in the videos (Thanks again, Amy!).”

Last month, Winston flew as a first class “pawsenger” from Virginia to California thanks to Michael Kennedy (pilot), Andrew and (co-pilot) ().

Now that Winston is in California, he is working on acclimating to his new environment and will receive lots of attention during his standard quarantine period. SDF will keep us updated on his progress. On a final note, Sylvia shared Winston greeted her one evening with three toys stuffed in his mouth and a wagging tail!

Your donations can help fund critical evaluations to determine the best future for our labs. In these unique situations, there is also transportation and housing that goes into saving these labs.

Thank you for helping us give our labs the very best life they deserve.

A working dog is a happy dog!

Giving options outside of Facebook:

🐾 Securely give online by credit or debit card: https://www.paypal.com/US/fundraiser/charity/2228281

🐾Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/LRGRdogs

🐾 Mail a check to: Lab Rescue of Greater Richmond, P.O. Box 1574, Midlothian, VA 23113

31/12/2024

PLEASE SHARE - RESCUES ONLY - private person looking to place mother dog and 2 week old pups. She’s planning to take them to the local shelter on Thursday. Please share to rescue groups who can help keep them out of the shelter. Message me for info.
Location: Grottoes/Harriston VA area

30/12/2024

Page County!!!

‼️‼️ Before we share our shelter dog of the day, a notice for the public and our community. The shelter is FULL with every dog run full. We are working to move 1-2 animals but that won’t happen this weekend.

Keep dogs at home, PLEASE! If you find a dog and it’s a safe situation, check the collar for ID, ask neighbors, go door to door, make a FB post. Strays must be held 5-10 days and one stray intake can hurt an animal at the shelter.

The dog spay and neuter assistance line is 540 435 4101, leave a VM. Please help us control overpopulation. Share this post, thank you for helping us and giving all dogs a chance at rescue or adoption.

28/12/2024

28/12/2024

I’m pleased to update everyone that little Cosette found her forever home before Christmas! We found her as a pregnant 4 month old stray. After she miscarried and we got her spayed, Dogs Deserve Better Blue Ridge helped us place her into her forever home! Thank you to all who donated toward her vet expenses, and thanks to DDBBR for promoting her and placing her! ❤️ 🐈

27/12/2024

I’m so sad to let everyone know that we had to help Nora over the rainbow bridge today. 💔🌈 She got ill before Christmas and was having seizures. We took her to the vet where she was diagnosed with possible Listeria. She also was diagnosed with CAE over the summer which is sort of a life-long disease and flares up occasionally. She was treated with antibiotics and steroids for the Listeria but after several days was still not able to stand. We tried for 8 days, keeping her propped upright between straw bales, giving her meds, and keeping her comfortable hoping she would be able to get back up. Despite our best efforts, Nora could not get back up. She was also exhibiting some neurological symptoms sporadically which led us to believe maybe the encephalitis portion of the CAE had flared up while her immunity was low. It broke our hearts to let her go, but it wasn’t fair to continue making her suffer against a losing battle. Thank you all for loving her like we did, and we hope seeing her on our page made you smile like she did for us. 💔

25/12/2024

Happy Holidays from our chaotic home to yours! You’ll notice that no single photo has everyone in it. The first pic is missing Rocco and Battie. The second pic is missing Kyle. The third pic is missing all of the dogs. The cats are conveniently catting and relate more to the grinch than to Santa (although they absolutely expect gifts and all). We tried to get a photo of the two of us with the dogs and it was a total disaster that was nothing but blurry legs and noses and ended with Mandy ripping apart her Christmas bow. Oscar has been checking all the closets for the Santa Paws toy stash. Penelope has been asking about the Santa tracker every 10 minutes. McGregor keeps sneaking Rocco’s name onto the naughty list. And Kyle just wants to eat the reindeer treats. Battie got another ugly Christmas sweater in a tradition that has lasted since we adopted her in 2017. We still wish the same Christmas wish that we do every year - that every homeless pet could have their own home, including those in our own kennel - some of which have waited for years. We are so very thankful for all of you who always support the dogs here at The Safehouse. Many of you sent toys and bones and treats and food so the kennel could have a Merry Christmas as well. I hope to have time to get some nice photos of the kennels dogs enjoying their gifts. Thank you also to the folks who send monetary gifts to help keep things running around here. You all mean the world to us. Being able to offer a safe place for the harder to place dogs gives me purpose every day. We wish you all the joys this holiday season brings. Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.

24/12/2024

Otis’s place on Santa’s “Nice List” has been secured since the day he was born. He’s just always been an all-around good guy! But even still, Otis hasn’t gotten his Christmas wish - a home with a family who will love him forever. As a puppy, Otis thought he had a family, but they kept him alone in a pen outside. For 3 years Otis waited for love until he was given away, then abandon by being tied alone to a tree in the woods. Dogs Deserve Better Blue Ridge took him into their program after animal control found him there. Otis is currently in boarding with Southern Hospetality, LLC., and to him, it feels like the Ritz! But in his little Otis heart he is still longing for that family experience. Otis would love a home with another dog and a fenced yard where they can run and play together. Otis loves people but has never lived with very small children, so we would prefer a home with older kids. Otis can be FOSTERED or ADOPTED! Just click on the link to learn more about giving Otis his Christmas wish of a home.

https://www.dogsdeservebetter.org/adopt &page=shelterluv_wrap_1721407655855%252Fembed%252Fanimal%252FDDBB-A-90

Located outside Charlottesville, VA

22/12/2024

I met this little feller named Murphy last week, and he’s SOOOOO CUTE! He’s boarding at Southern Hospetality, LLC. and is adoptable through Dogs Deserve Better Blue Ridge. He wants to be ADOPTED or FOSTERED so badly that he was willing to wear all the holiday props for his photos. We talked him into antlers and a Santa jacket and a little red scarf with pom poms. He tried them all! Murphy said he’ll try anything to catch your attention! Murphy has the kind of personality that enjoys learning and bonding. He’s very personable and intuitive. He likes dogs and people and really is an all-around good dude. Murphy’s main issue is that he’s very sensitive to noise stimuli. He struggles with vacuum cleaners, ice makers, and other random appliance noises. Would you like to make Murphy your bestie? You can apply to adopt him through Dogs Deserve https://www.dogsdeservebetter.org/adopt &page=shelterluv_wrap_1721407655855%252Fembed%252Fanimal%252FDDBB-A-76