As the last dog in a litter of puppies was rescued from a culvert-like pipe near Sunnyside last week, Becky Pascua was among dozens following on social media.
Eight husky-mix puppies were thought to have been released by their owner in the Lower Valley. When several pups got stuck in a pipe along Independence Road, multiple people got involved in a five-day rescue effort.
Pascua is the founder and director of All Mutts Great and Small, a foster-based dog rescue in Yakima County. It was heartening to see so many people helping, she said. She’s been involved with animal rescue and welfare in the Yakima Valley for years and knows numerous animal lovers and responsible pet owners.
But at the same time, the puppy rescues highlight the continuing crisis of dog abandonment and dog dumping, particularly in the Lower Yakima Valley. Despite the devotion of Pascua and other animal welfare heroes in the region, animal shelters and fosters are full. Collectively they’re having to turn away countless dogs and puppies a year.
It’s an issue with several causes. Pascua puts irresponsible dog breeders who care only about making money at the top of that list.
“It needs to start with irresponsible breeding — (that) has to stop,” Pascua said.
‘Hotbed of abandonment’
Pascua was that kid who wanted to give all the dogs a home. “My mom got used to hearing, ‘Mom, can I keep it?'” she said. After years of solo efforts, she began volunteering with a local dog rescue in 2009 and founded All Mutts in 2015.
She fosters dogs and clearly loves dogs. She also knows the challenges of owning a dog, including the cost. “If you can’t afford it, don’t do it,” Pascua said.
“Love is not enough to be a dog owner. There’s so much more to it than that.”
Though puppies and dogs are abandoned in orchards and along roads and in rural areas throughout Yakima County, the Lower Valley “seems to be a hotbed of abandonment,” she said.
That’s due to multiple factors, she said. Some people don’t believe in spaying and neutering dogs, or don’t have the funds or readily available options for spaying and neutering their dogs. Some get dogs only for guarding property and possessions, so they’re chained or kept outside. Some don’t properly contain their dogs, so they run off, over and over, and eventually don’t return home.
“I think it’s just careless ownership. It’s just not caring where your dog is,” Pascua said. She also blames a “throwaway culture.” Once the puppy grows up and it’s not cute enough for social media videos, it’s time to get another one. Or the puppy grows into a dog that’s too much to handle.
“On a daily basis I probably get anywhere from three to seven requests from people” to take dogs,” Pascua said. “There was one week of 70 voicemails of people finding dogs and wanting us to take them.”
All Mutts has around a dozen steadfast people who foster dogs. Like most if not all rescues, the nonprofit could use more help. But fostering involves its own challenges. Dogs often have medical or behavioral issues, Pascua said. They often need socialization to ensure they’re adopted, and adopters must be vetted carefully.
Those who want to support fosters by helping take dogs to the vet, buying supplies and more would be welcome. As for curtailing the number of stray and abandoned puppies and dogs, spaying and neutering always helps, Pascua said.
But more intervention is needed because “we’re saturated.” More rules and enforcement are needed, she said.
Seeking solutions
The dramatic husky rescue near Sunnyside on Jan. 24 put the public’s attention on the issue of abandoned dogs. Volunteers lowered a net into the hole to reach the last puppy, using a camera from a local septic company to navigate.
Hope 4 Huskies founder Christina Rader, who coordinated the rescue, is now taking care of the five surviving puppies, who are doing well. Three of the eight died.
Christina Rader, founder of Hope 4 Huskies, holds one of the puppies rescued from Sunnyside.
As county and city officials do what they can within their limited abilities, residents and multiple pet rescues have been filling in the need for years. But many agree that new long-term solutions are needed.
Sunnyside City Manager Mike Gonzalez said he’s been hearing concerns from local dog advocates and has called a meeting at 6 p.m. on Feb. 19 at the Sunnyside Law and Justice Center, 401 Homer St.
Sunnyside has been facing budget issues, and officials shifted the duties of city animal control to building code enforcement inspectors as a cost saving measure last year. But even if the city had full-time animal control, there still wouldn’t be space to put all the strays, he said.
“It’s a regional crisis,” Gonzalez said.
Rader said in a social media post that she is planning to attend the meeting, and hopes others concerned about the issue will too.
At the county level, Yakima County Commissioner Kyle Curtis told the Yakima-Herald Republic the board of commissioners may review changes to its code related to dogs as soon as March. A work group has been looking at the issue for more than a year. Among the list of possible recommendations: requiring that dog breeders be certified, limiting the number of adult dogs on a property and requiring that people spay or neuter their animals.
Curtis also would like to bring forward a proposal this year to establish a county-run canine shelter.
Dumped dogs at ‘an all-time high’
Debra Byrd is a dog-lover who has lived nearly all of her life in the Yakima Valley. At her home in Toppenish, 14 dogs have taken up residence.
“That’s on average,” Byrd said. “My neighbors are pretty understanding, thank God for them.”
She first started to take in strays about eight years ago. About half of the ones she has now are waiting for space at a rescue, the other half are “foster fails” that she’s keeping out of love or because they are not suitable for rehoming because they have behavior issues, or are blind or deaf.
“It’s definitely at an all-time high. I’ve never seen it like this before,” Byrd said. “Even pure-bred dogs are getting dumped out here.”
People in the area know to call Byrd about strays – she said she is well acquainted with the rescues and shelters in the county. But lately there’s not a lot of space for the animals, she said. She often has to work with rescues on the west side of the state.
“Just three days ago I found a puppy in a ditch — it’s in my kitchen now,” Byrd said. That dog will be taken in by Pacific Rim Rescue, based in Issaquah.
Byrd believes that a big reason why dogs end up dumped is because people have to move into apartments that don’t allow dogs, or charge high fees to have them.
Byrd would like to see a facility on the Yakama Reservation that will take surrendered animals and strays. She also thinks a billboard explaining that abandoning a dog is a crime would also help, she said.
“I think that they have a soul; they’re sentient beings,” Byrd said. “They need to be taken care of.”
Humane society cannot meet demand alone
Two animal control officers serve the unincorporated areas of the 4,294 square miles of Yakima County, and Cindy Kanzler is one of them.
Yakima Humane Society volunteers Aurora Schott, left, and Riley Ryan pet a dog named Baby while walking her Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Yakima, Wash. The shelter can hold up to 61 large dogs.
The officers, who are part of the Sheriff’s Office, gets calls daily about stray animals, but dealing with strays is outside their scope of duty, unless the animal needs immediate medical care. Kanzler explained that they must prioritize owned animals, like pets and livestock.
“People think that as animal control officers, we’re a rescue group. That is not our role in the county,” Kanzler said.
She refers callers to one of the handful of pet rescues in the county for guidance. She advises people against taking the dog into their home because it’s difficult to predict behavior. She cited the example of a person who brought home a stray dog last month. It bit her and her dog.
The Yakima County Sheriff’s Office has a contract with the Yakima County Humane Society to take in five dogs per month, but that is for dogs that must be legally held, such as after biting someone, she said.
“We’re limited in our abilities,” Kanzler said. “If we picked up every stray, we’d fill this county’s humane society very quickly.”
And as Kelli Peal, shelter operations director at the Yakima Humane Society will tell you, the nonprofit, no-kill shelter is at capacity.
“The last few years have been trying,” Peal said.
Their mission is to help as many animals as possible, and they try to do so. Right now, 130 people are on a waitlist to bring in a stray or surrendered dog, Peal said Thursday. The shelter can hold up to 61 large dogs.
Kanzler said that dog abandonment is a county-wide issue, and one that is hard to prevent.
It’s not often that a person is caught in the act of dumping a dog, but it has happened before, Kanzler said. A man dumped his dog in the county because it was tearing up items in his house, and an eyewitness reported the man’s license plate to animal control.
Kanzler found the dog owner and gave him two options – to go back and find the dog and rehome it the right way or face charges. The man chose to rehome it.
‘An epidemic’
Many people don’t know that abandoning an animal is considered second-degree animal cruelty, Kanzler said.
“Our stray population and the problem of dumping dogs is an epidemic here,” she said.
Kanzler said she believes that a lot of the strays come from pets that were not spayed and neutered, and whatever puppies that aren’t sold end up dumped.
Kanzler said animal control is working with commissioners on solutions, and getting people to spay and neuter their dogs will be a key element.
“A lot of people say it’s expensive, but it’s a part of being a responsible pet owner,” Kanzler said.
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