The same day Kristie Hunnell decided to take a break from the board of a Buffalo animal rescue group, she filed the paperwork for her own nonprofit organization.
Buffalo Underdogs Rescue was born five years ago this month in partnership with the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter and a nine-kennel shelter in eastern Texas that serves as a home to dogs that need extra attention.
“We never, ever give up on our dogs,” Hunnell said of her group, which she calls BUR for short.
The East Amherst resident has been a part of the rescue circuit in Western New York for almost a decade, but the group she founded focuses on her passion within it: saving medically needy dogs that often otherwise go overlooked and unadopted.
BUR rescues, rehabilitates and places dogs with pre-existing health conditions with families that agree to love them. The dogs arrive in the region with conditions including amputated limbs, missing eyes, heartworms and other challenges.
Bulldogs, hound dogs and Yorkies – along with other breeds small to large and younger and older – arrive in Buffalo from a shelter in Jasper, Texas.
“They have such an incredible need for local rescues to pull dogs,” Hunnell said, referring to the overpopulation problem that has stressed animal shelters nationwide. “We will never rescue ourselves out of the overpopulation problem.”
Spaying and neutering are the only way to counter the unprecedented rise, she said.
A rise in surrendered dogs has contributed to the problem, and Hunnell understands why. Since she started her rescue, food costs have doubled, she said, and…
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