On January 12, 2016, American Humane’s renowned emergency rescue team of first responders, accompanied by one of their 50-foot Lois Pope Rescue Vehicles and two F-350 trucks, deployed to Tennessee at the request of the City of Bartlett Animal Control to participate in a dramatic early morning raid in Bartlett which was aimed at saving, rehabilitating, and caring for 46 cats and a dog seized from a local home who were allegedly abused and neglected.
The animals were removed and taken to a temporary emergency animal shelter facility where they were given food, medical treatment, and intensive 24-hour care until were out of danger. The American Humane First Responders collaborated with Bartlett Animal Control, the Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County, Animal Response Foundation, and Florida Disaster Animal Response & Transport in the operation.
This was not the first time that American Humane’s animal first responders have deployed to assist in a cruelty case in the Memphis area. in 2015 the team saved horses, mules and a minihorse in Fayette County who were intentionally starved and dehydrated in the hot Tennessee summer.
In 2013, 141 dogs were rescued in deplorable condition from the back of a U-Haul trailer in which they were being transported near Memphis. American Humane helped care for the animals and arranged for a special airlift of those who were not adopted locally to a safe shelter to find forever homes.
American Humane’s Animal Rescue Program was created in 1916 at the request of the U.S. Secretary of War to rescue war horses on the battlefields of World War I Europe. Now celebrating a century of saving animals in need, our First Responders have been rescuing animals of every kind and have been involved in virtually every major disaster relief effort from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Joplin, Missouri and Moore, Oklahoma tornadoes, the Japanese and Haitian earthquakes, and Superstorm Sandy. Over just the past ten years our Animal First Responders have saved, helped and sheltered more than 80,000 animals.
