With community support, Prairie Song Rescue saves more than sixty canines

Wilsall, Montana – Prairie Song Rescue in Park County stepped forward to ensure that the roughly sixty dogs left in terrible conditions received the care they required.

“So, there were community members that were very aware of this man and had been calling law enforcement, trying to get animal control out there for years. And so, there was a couple of people who were in direct community and reached out to us immediately,” says Jessica Zimmerman, Prairie Song president.

According to Zimmerman, the 58 dogs that were on the owner’s property were left on their own after he was unexpectedly sent behind bars.

“We were very overwhelmed by the number of dogs and the conditions of dogs. The amount it was going to take us for vet care and food alone was astronomical,” she says. “A lot of them were kenneled in a dank basement in their own feces and a lot of them had been fighting aggressively over females in heat.”

Despite these difficulties, Prairie Song and her companions were able to remove the majority of the dogs, and over three-quarters of them have since been adopted by foster families and loving homes. But there’s still work to be done.

Zimmerman says, “I believe we have somewhere around 15 that are still either not medically able to be adopted into homes or are just too scared and semi-feral and are not prepared mentally and emotionally to be in homes.”

Being a charity, Prairie Song depends mostly on donations and volunteers to carry out its mission.

“It just seemed like people came out of the woodwork to be able to help us with this, which was amazing—we could never have done it without them,” says Zimmerman.