BUDA, Texas -- A rescue organization in Buda focuses on caring for animals with special needs and critical medical cases.
- Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue in Buda focused on animals with special needs
- Some have cleft palates, blindness
- Foster and forever homes sought
At the Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue, founder Rachel Lienemann and her team work with animals that have special needs like cleft palates, blindness, and loss of limbs. It all started a few years ago after taking in several cats in critical condition from a severe hoarding case. Now, Lienemann focuses on getting these animals into foster homes and eventually their forever homes.
"So we originally started out doing just cats, then I moved into cats and dogs, and then I moved into cleft palate puppies and other pretty serious special needs," Lienemann said. "The cleft palates, once I found that it was just it like opened my eyes, like this whole other world of special needs."
Lienemann said FTAR is one of the only Texas rescues that specifically cares for urgent cases of cleft palate puppies. She said people from all over reach out to her rescue to take care of newborn "clefties."
"Spreading awareness for what we're doing, it makes the difference between life and death in some cases for these clefties that nobody knows how to take care of," Lienemann said. "Once we get a call that there’s a cleftie in need, we work hard and we rally together and we do everything we can in order to get transport aligned. And then once we get the puppy here, we have human grade incubators, we have oxygen concentrators, we have vets who foster for us, we have the whole setup. And it works out perfectly."
Lienemann believes every animal deserves a second chance, even those who need a little bit of extra care.
“I love being able to use my skills to help out these little ones," Lienemann said. "I work at Kyle Animal Hospital, and we're partnered with them so we get really good deals. I wouldn't be able to do this without them. There's not a day that goes by without one of our rescues at Kyle."
In order to pay the medical bills, Lienemann works overnight shifts monitoring the animals needing hospitalization.
"I probably stay at the clinic overnight like once or twice a week, on average. I would spend every night at the clinic if it meant that these guys could live," Lienemann said.
One of her recent medical cases on a rescued puppy involved bilateral amputation. Dos, the two-legged puppy, was found underneath a house wrapped in barbed wire.
"At first was really hesitant because historically, you know you don't hear about two-legged dogs. It's just not a thing. But then after doing some research we found about, we found out about another dog named Deuce. And he's a two-legged dog who also has bilateral amputations on the same side, and he's walking, running, playing, doing everything a dog should do. And so that kind of gave us the inspiration, like, okay, there's hope for him," Lienemann said. "Dos is a little wobbly but a lot of that is because we are just three weeks post surgery. So he's building strength in that left side and he can do everything a dog can do. Honestly, the reason why I do is because of these successful stories. You know, these happy endings are priceless," Lienemann said.
If you're interested in adopting or fostering animals from Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue, visit the rescue's Facebook page and fill out an application.