As you know, TFF was created in early 2014 initially as a forum to advocate pet responsibility and address a myriad of animal welfare issues. Circumstances changed and in the fall of that same year, the gracious owners of Seven Lakes Kennels provided us the opportunity to house dogs in a controlled environment adjacent to their business. We have invested significant time, energy and money to create an extremely animal-friendly shelter with one simple thought in mind: The best interest of each dog will always come first.
We continue to believe in our high standards of animal rescue to provide each dog with comprehensive behavioral assessment and medical care, as well as basic training and frequent socialization outside of the kennel environment, including incorporating this outside socialization into programs that give back and help the local community. This also helps create awareness of what is clearly a community issue.
Although we recently reduced our numbers to exclusively attend to the care and comfort of three special needs dogs, all of whom would certainly have been destroyed if left in a public facility, we will continue our mission. Due to the anticipated extreme heat we expect to experience in the next several weeks and its impact on our remaining residents (we have no way to adequately cool our facility) as well as the loss of kennel help, we will use foster care for those dogs we still have with us. This change of environment for our dogs will benefit them in many ways.
We intend to use the temporary “down time” without the need to manage kennel operations to evaluate how we will move forward and will concentrate our efforts accordingly. Our principal focus will be how to best use the financial and volunteer resources we have to rescue more at-risk animals while still employing our standards of care and adoption protocol that will ensure success for each dog in its new, forever home.
A special thank you to our donors and the small but dedicated core of volunteers who have given us the opportunity to save 300 animals from likely destruction…and with your help, we expect to save many more.
We will report back to you soon.
The Farley Foundation
John and Betsy Ficarro, Founders
The Farley Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 animal rescue organization founded by John and Betsy Ficarro of Pinehurst, NC. It is named in memory of their first shelter dog Farley, a certified therapy dog who was rescued as a puppy from a North Carolina county shelter by Cindy Bristow founder of Solutions for Animals (a Hoke County NC animal rescue non-profit) minutes before being euthanized and subsequently adopted by the Ficarros.