MARTINSVILLE, Ind. — The Sanders family loves their dogs. They jokingly refer to themselves as failed foster parents because they ended up adopting Aires and Nova while fostering them.
But Samantha Sanders said that's also what lead them to open their own rescue, called Little Rascals Pet Rescue in Martinsville.
"Morgan County has a great rescue system, between several local rescues and then our Humane Society. And we just wanted to help contribute to that and really try and make a difference here in town," Samantha said.
Since 2019, Little Rascals has fostered more than 150 dogs, a few dozen cats, and even a guinea pig and a rabbit. Most of the animals are owner surrenders.
Samantha said when she first started the rescue, there were just three volunteers. Now her extended family has become a big help with the efforts. They also get a lot of support from local businesses and volunteers who help with the animals and donations to keep the rescue going.
The organization works with several local businesses who offer free services like medical care and training. But the only way they can save more animals is to get more foster families.
Dustin Sanders said fosters are the most critical part of rescue operations.
"Fosters are probably the hardest thing to find and for us being foster-based, we can't save an animal if we don't have a foster for it," Dustin said. "We can only have so many dogs in our house at once, but it's one of those (things where) if we can find fosters, we can help more animals."
Little Rascals was fortunate during the pandemic to get more families fostering, but now they are seeing those volunteers trickle off again. The goal is to get more volunteers, more fosters, and more money raised to help animals in need. To contact Little Rascals about fostering, call 574-354-2191 email littlerascalspetrescue@gmail.com.