Southern Hearts Rescue

20/06/2025

Another BIG shoutout to the Saline County Humane Society for donating this Credelio to help us with flea and tick prevention for our rescue babies!!

We cannot say it enough, WE COULD NOT DO THIS WITHOUT OUR SUPPORTERS AND COULD NOT BE MORE THANKFUL FOR DONATIONS LIKE THESE!!! 💜

20/06/2025

Just a quick update on our girl Lexus.
She had her spay surgery today! She has a terrible UTI. It’s pretty resistant as it’s not responding to the current antibiotics. Cultures are being taken and she’s being started on different antibiotics that we hope she will respond to. 🤞🏼She is the sweetest girl and Bentley is missing her terribly while she’s away.

Send her all the good vibes today!! 💜

Original post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14Jpf6SepQG/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Donations for Southern Hearts Rescue are gratefully accepted through these methods:

PayPal:
[email protected]

Venmo: Last 4 of phone 8037
SHRescue

CashApp:
$shrescue

Checks or packages can be mailed to:
Southern Hearts Rescue
13616 Mars Hill RD
Bauxite AR 72011

Amazon wishlist:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/YF8KNMPVCXRN?ref_=wl_share

Walmart wishlist:
https://www.walmart.com/registry/RR/cbe1326e-020d-4810-ac2a-80d9c0c8a8e0

Shipping Address:
13616 Mars Hill Rd
Bauxite, AR 72011

To donate monthly you can follow this direct link:
https://donorbox.org/saving-animals

Don’t forget to make us your charity of choice at Kroger!

Shrescue.org

20/06/2025

This. The excuses are never ending.

WHAT SHOULD BE ON EVERY SHELTER ANSWERING MACHINE...

Hello: You have reached… (123) 4556-7890.

Due to the high volume of calls we have been receiving, please listen closely to
the following options and choose the one that best describes you or
your situation:

Press 1 if you have a 10-year-old dog and your 15-year-old son has
suddenly become allergic and you need to find the dog a new home
right away.

Press 2 if you are moving today and need to immediately place your
150 pound, 8-year-old dog.

Press 3 if you have three dogs, had a baby and want to get rid of
your dogs because you are the only person in the world to have a
baby and dogs at the same time.

Press 4 if you just got a brand new puppy and your old dog is having
problems adjusting so you want to get rid of the old one right away.

Press 5 if your little puppy has grown up and is no longer small and
cute and you want to trade it in for a new model.

Press 6 if you want an unpaid volunteer to come to your home TODAY
and pick up the dog you no longer want.

Press 7 if you have been feeding and caring for a “stray” for the
last three years, are moving and suddenly determine it’s not your
dog.

Press 8 if your dog is sick and needs a vet but you need the money
for your vacation.

Press 9 if you are elderly and want to adopt a cute puppy who is not
active and is going to outlive you.

Press 10 if your relative has died and you don’t want to care for
their elderly dog because it doesn’t fit your lifestyle.

Press 11 if your cat is biting and not using the litter box because
it is declawed, but you are not willing to accept the responsibility
that the cat’s behavior is altered because of your nice furniture.

Press 12 if your two-year old male dog is marking all over your house
but you just haven’t gotten around to having him neutered.

Press 13 if you previously had an outdoor only dog and are calling
because she is suddenly pregnant.

Press 14 if you are calling at 6 a.m. to make sure you wake me up
before I have to go to work so you can drop a dog off on your way
to work.

Press 15 to leave us an anonymous garbled message, letting us know
you have left a dog in our yard in the middle of January, which is
in fact, better than just leaving the dog with no message.

Press 16 if you are going to get angry because we are not going to
take your dog that you have had for fifteen years, because it is
not our responsibility.

Press 17 if you are going to threaten to take your ten-year old dog
to be euthanized because I won’t take it.

Press 18 if you’re going to get angry because the volunteers had the
audacity to go on vacation and leave the dogs in care of a trusted
volunteer who is not authorized to take your personal pet.

Press 19 if you want one of our PERFECTLY trained, housebroken, kid
and cat friendly purebred dogs that we have an abundance of.

Press 20 if you want us to take your dog that has a slight
aggression problem, i.e. has only bitten a few people and killed your
neighbor’s cats.

Press 21 if you have already called once and been told we don’t take
personal surrenders but thought you would get a different person this
time with a different answer.

Press 22 if you want us to use space that would go to a stray to
board your personal dog while you are on vacation, free of charge,
of course.

Press 23 if it is Christmas Eve or Easter morning and you want me to
deliver an eight week old puppy to your house by 6:30 am before
your kids wake up.

Press 24 if you have bought your children a duckling, chick or baby
bunny for Easter and it is now Christmas and no longer cute.

Press 25 if you want us to take your female dog who has already had
ten litters, but we can’t spay her because she is pregnant again and
it is against your religion.

Press 26 if you’re lying to make one of our younger volunteers feel
bad and take your personal pet off your hands.

Press 27 if you have done “everything” to housebreak your dog and
have had no success but you don’t want to crate the dog because it
is cruel.

Press 28 if you didn’t listen to the message asking for an evening
phone number and you left your work number when all volunteers are
also working and you are angry because no one called you back.

Press 29 if you need a puppy immediately and cannot wait because
today is your daughter’s birthday and you forgot when she was born.

Press 30 if your dog’s coat doesn’t match your new furniture and you
need a different color or breed.

Press 31 if your new love doesn’t like your dog and you are too
stupid to get rid of the new friend (who will dump you in the next
month anyway) instead of the dog.

Press 32 if you went through all these ‘options’ and didn’t hear
enough. This press will connect you to the sounds of tears being
shed by one of our volunteers who is holding a discarded old dog
while the vet mercifully frees him from the grief of missing his
family.

Please remember that if you can not commit to fur-always or at least the next 13-17 years, DON’T BUY A PET! it is not a shelter or rescue’s obligation to take on your commitments, they do so out of fear that you will kill them if they don’t, and dumping them anywhere, even alone on the side of a road is abuse!

~Brian

20/06/2025

I am so proud of my daughter she is learning so many things my grandma showed me growing up, just loving the world around you and everything in it by being the positive in every situation.

Every day I get to teach and learn while I work along side her and I couldn't be happier at how much she has blossomed working with animals.

After such a sad and depressing week with the loss of a child who had a heart of gold, like my own daughter, I have kept my children as close to me as I could no matter what it was that I did this week.

As I watched her bottle feed these 3 sweet little souls, I couldn't help wanting to share some of my love for her with all of you, my supporters. To say thank you, for making our life of saving animals and helping different communities all over Arkansas, possible! We will keep fighting this fight until our very last breath ❤️ We love you, thank you!!

-Whitney

19/06/2025

We have to give a HUGE SHOUTOUT to the staff at Bryant Veterinary Clinic for donating an entire bag of Interceptor Plus to help us keep our rescue babies wormed and free of parasites. We cannot say thank you enough to amazing donors like this.

ANYTHING HELPS!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

19/06/2025

Do you think it ever ends? We know it doesn’t. Do you think we have room? Absolutely not. But.
These sweet babies were found in Pine Bluff, no momma in sight and no one available to bottle feed within reach.

So of course, Whitney and her heart of gold, couldn’t just let them die. So, now we have these sweet little ones in our care! Luckily they are TINY and don’t take up much space, for now at least!

These babies are going to need around the clock care so it’s going to be a busy few weeks for her.

We cannot wait to see these babies thrive!!

Got any name suggestions? They are ALL BOYS!! Give us your best shot!

Donations for Southern Hearts Rescue are gratefully accepted through these methods:

PayPal:
[email protected]

Venmo: Last 4 of phone 8037
SHRescue

CashApp:
$shrescue

Checks or packages can be mailed to:
Southern Hearts Rescue
13616 Mars Hill RD
Bauxite AR 72011

Amazon wishlist:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/YF8KNMPVCXRN?ref_=wl_share

Walmart wishlist:
https://www.walmart.com/registry/RR/cbe1326e-020d-4810-ac2a-80d9c0c8a8e0

Shipping Address:
13616 Mars Hill Rd
Bauxite, AR 72011

To donate monthly you can follow this direct link:
https://donorbox.org/saving-animals

Don’t forget to make us your charity of choice at Kroger!

Shrescue.org

18/06/2025

https://www.bentoncourier.com/news/calls-for-action-and-animal-control-shelter-grow-after-saline-county-teen-s-death-in/article_8adf536c-e515-4c7e-a55f-d3853a92950e.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR5HzY-X2EVDFHI7G-EwV-8K9cCMQkRR7gRIRdwlRipUPImYZUxMxOyE1QrFOw_aem_1ApU9nfBFdvHHVR0WnIghA

The recent death of a 15-year-old Bryant student, Makayla Fortner, in a fatal dog attack has renewed pressure on Saline County officials to address a gap in public safety: the

17/06/2025

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

15/06/2025

Happy Father's Day to all the dads, the not yet dads, the stepdads, the moms who are dad, the adoptive dads, the grandads, the fur dads, and the dads who are no longer with us. 💜

15/06/2025

Deep Breath…
The past few days we have been dealing with the worst possible outcome from a situation that has unfortunately been in the making for years. Make no mistake, there is still a very real possibility that other similar events could continue to occur until sweeping changes are made to our laws, the resources available in this state, and the enforcement of established laws.

There is a massive amount of misinformation being spread across the internet at a rapid rate. This does nothing to honor the wishes and memory of an amazing young woman who gave her life doing what she loved. It NEVER should have happened. She never should have been put in that position to pick up the slack of a government who couldn’t care less about animal welfare.

In fact No citizen should be put in that situation but that is the reality that rescuers, neighbors, walkers, workers, and people with hearts that are too big (unintentional hoarders) deal with everyday all across this state (Arkansas). There are staggering numbers of animals that are abused and neglected simply because their numbers are too much for the area they reside in. It is unsafe for the animals and the humans who reside in areas where it gets out of control. There are MANY of those areas, all across the state, in many communities.

It is very easy to get overwhelmed and just give up until something terrible happens and then someone is forced to act. There are reports on the local social media pages of people being chased by packs of dogs. One poor person was almost ripped out of their wheelchair less than 10 miles from where this tragedy took place. In other parts of the state just yesterday a lady was attacked by roaming dogs on the way to her mailbox.

I personally partnered with Lonoke law enforcement a couple of weeks ago to go and assist with humanly trapping and removing two dogs that “had the neighbors arming themselves with wasp spray just to walk outside”. Our rescue assisted with a cat hoarding situation where over 40 cats were locked running loose inside a house in the middle of Little Rock. You could literally see the State Capitol from the house where the animals were removed. Yes there is an an animal control for Little Rock but one animal control can not handle an influx of 40 animals.

The situation is beyond out of control. There is no clear direction on how these things are to be handled. The governor has remained silent. We know she has contact info for the family of Makayla and at this time has not yet reached out.

Some of these areas do not have animal control so then it falls on law enforcement. Law enforcement may or may not have guidelines on what to do and most likely will NOT have the resources to handle it if so. So now what? Most of our local law enforcement start calling us (rescues). But we are full and stay that way because there are just too many animals.

Many people don’t realize that the average rescue doesn’t have a lot of fancy training. We just care, a lot. Most rescuers are not trained and dealing with incredibly dangerous situations and even with training you can never fully prepare for a multitude of dogs that you know nothing about in an environment you’re not familiar with. Watch the video Jenny from Jak’s posted about how she an experienced rescuer suddenly found herself in a life threatening situation. When she first told me about it I could hear the fear in her voice. She was scared and she should have been. But she also never should have been put in that situation. She had to go into a hoarding house alone (and with volunteers) but not the police or animal control (who were outside) and literally no one could hear her screaming for help. If that is not a metaphor for the out of control animal issues in Arkansas I don’t know what is. We are screaming from the top of our lungs for help and government is standing outside the fence, letting us handle the situation, and ignorant to our screams, and not lifting a finger to help.

I could go on and on and you know I can but there are other things I need to address and I think you get the point.
If we put out misinformation it was not intentional. We are not a rescue that lies to you, covers things up, and we certainly don’t sugar coat the truth. As we have found our new information we are presenting you this update.

To recap we were told on the day of at the scene that 13 (now it may be 14 but that is still unclear) dogs were involved (inside the same area where the attack (that was not witnessed) took place) and those dogs were removed to be humanely put down. The news stations report that did indeed end up happening (we do not have confirmation but it stands to reason that was the final outcome). Per reports the police were notified after the attack had taken place therefor no on can say what caused the attack or what animals were actively involved. Dogs are pack animals and what one does they all do because of that whatever dogs were inside the area were removed.
So that is 13 or 14 for those of you that are counting (and we know you are counting). Then there were the 3 that MaKayla had already rescued. Per her mom’s request we continued MaKayla’s rescue mission by saving them. Which brings the number up to 16 or 17. 4 (inside personal dogs) were left on the property. Which brings us up to 20 or 21 dogs. We are well aware there are reports of up to 40 animals however we can only account for half of that. Our personal take is that 40 was just an estimate. Even the videos taken days before show maybe about 20 dogs. It is not uncommon for those numbers to change as more information comes out. Seriously have you stood in a large amount of animals and tried to count them? It isn’t easy.

None of this is easy. It isn’t easy to deal with the unnecessary guilt from feeling like there was more we could have done. We (rescuers) have done more to try and prevent situations like this than any one else has. This is NOT our job. We are NOT paid to do this. We do NOT hold positions of authority. We are regular everyday people who just have an intense passion for animals and want to try and make the world a better place. That passion drives our everyday lives. We see things no one should have to see. As a former EMT and current animal rescuer I have seen things I can never unsee. For years I have been able to manage my thoughts when I am a awake however the horrors provide me hours of reminders on repeat when I sleep. So I don’t actually sleep I just relive the nightmares over and over again. Most rescuers will report similar feelings. What is the point of telling you all this? To finally address the two major Bigfoots in the room.

1. MaKayla and her family were absolutely innocent victims in this situation. That being said we were originally mislead to believe that this was a case of what I refer to as unintentional hoarders (people (usually elderly) who have had animals dumped on them (mostly based on being located at the end of a dirt road where terrible people can not be witnessed committing the crime of dumping their unwanted animals) and these poor people now have to make the choice to either feed the animals or watch them slowly starve to death. In most cases they can not even touch the animals so it is nearly impossible to get them medical care so they breed and inbreed at alarming rates. This case however is not that. For whatever reason these hoarders brought the dogs to their property themselves (according to the neighbors) and allowed them to run loose, breed, and even attack each other in the front yard. That makes them responsible and complicit in this situation. You can not knowingly unleash a pack of animals to run loose just because you “Live in the country”.

After the incident, the sheriffs office informed the public that there was no threat to public safety. They are the ones who make that call and we had no reason to state otherwise. We have learned new information that dogs from that property had shown aggression and had being terrorizing the neighborhood prior to the incident. It is unclear and as far as we know there is no proof (videos) of the specific dogs that were seized having been those dogs. If there was a public safety threat it appears it was prior to the response to the unfortunate incident and had been ongoing up until then. Law enforcement had been notified in the past but it is unclear what they did or did not do.
That inability or perhaps unwillingness of law enforcement to be able to act and correct these situations before a tragedy happens is why we are speaking out about this as well as working with other rescues to get some direction for the future. This could have happened in any county. In any community. In your community.

2. The animals themselves and my “attitude”.
The animals are a mixture of multiple breeds of animals as most of our stray population is in this state. We were told labs and hounds the sheriffs office reported bully breeds as well. What the animals are doesn’t matter. Whenever there is a “dog attack” everyone immediately makes assumptions and then that is all anyone focuses on and the real issue gets lost in an endless screaming match between haters and lovers of the bully breed. I thought finally people will actually be able to see the problem and work on it together and let that allow me too much hope and my attitude was more cavalir than it should have been. All animals have the ability to become dangerous. I have seen schnauzers, poodles, and chows with my own eyes snap for no reason. And quite frankly I didn’t want to deal with the ignorance that usually comes from the we hate bigfoot crowd. We love all animals here and always will. We don’t discriminate and don’t want to associate with people that can look at an adorable little puppy and say - “Kill it”. That’s horrible. Humans are responsible for all of this. Blaming the animals is just another cop out.

Finally -Look we aren’t perfect. Whatever bad wrong or evil thing you think we did had no malice behind our words or our efforts. Unless you came at my in the comments with attitude first. Did I return that same energy to you? You bet I did. Did some of you get deleted? Sure did. I don’t understand how you think you can call us child murders and we are just supposed to what sit back and take that. Like I already told you we don’t suffer fools here. We left some comments that seemed to be controversial but leading to needed respectful discussions or we just missed some of the ignorance during the flood. We did our best to moderate.

We are heartbroken and frustrated as we deal with this daily. Rescuers have been begging for help for situations like this for years. Do you have any idea how crushing it was to have it happen mere miles away? To know if we had just been bigger or had more support maybe we could had changed this outcome? In this same county alone you have no idea what an impact our rescue has made because we rescue hundreds of dogs just from Saline county every year. Someone who does math better than I ever will be able to made a chart showing 44,000 dogs can come from a single breeding female and her offspring. Now multiple that by 100. Now that’s umm a lot. But yet still this tragedy occurred. So we carry that weight on our shoulders as well. We are doing the best we can and in the end that is all we can do.

Haters…. [Personal message from our founder Whitney- If anyone out there reading this thinks they can do better with any of these animals please make sure to provide us the location you want us to bring them to so you can care for them better than us. If you are going to pick up an animal and care for it let us know so we can keep up with who actually puts effort in to helping the community like Makayla was trying to do and who just likes to play the blame game online bitching while being useless to our community and not lifting a finger.]
If you think you can do it better than put up or shut up. If you have some weird vendetta but no proof against this rescue and want to “expose us” and “shut us down” you better be ready to step in and step up. You are in for very rude awakening. You come do our job and I will happily sit back and blog about it. But until then we will be here still fighting for the peace animals and humans alike deserves to have.

A huge thank you to all our supporters. You make our efforts possible! Your words of encouragement can make all the difference in a day. Your likes and shares matter, getting the word out is 60% of the rescue effort as sightings are essential to a successful outcome. Your donations contribute to saving so many innocent lives. You truly are what keeps us going even in dark times such as these.

-Preston