Dog injured after Kittanning animal shelter floods
KITTANNING, Pa. (KDKA) — A dog was injured Tuesday when an animal shelter in Kittanning was consumed by flash flooding.
The damage occurred at Orphans of the Storm along Route 85 in Rayburn Township.
The shelter's director says when she arrived Tuesday morning, a puppy named Toots was not breathing.
"I could hear a faint heartbeat," executive director Bethann Galbraith said. "So I knew at that point, I had to start mouth to mouth and start trying to get him warmed up."
Heavy rain flooded the small facility, leaving it covered in sewage and muck. The water, the staff believes, was high enough to submerge Toots.
"Heart-wrenching to think that you've been put in charge of caring for a living being and you weren't here to help it," Galbraith said.
Now help is exactly what the shelter needs. All of the animals are wet, dirty and in desperate need of a bath.
"We'll get it back to normal," Galbraith said. "But it's gonna take help and take all day, at least today to do this."
Toots was taken to the vet and is expected to be OK, but the shelter's director and volunteers say what happened and the mess left behind isn't.
"This is the closest we've ever come to losing an animal and I don't want this to ever happen," she said.
Armstrong County's humane officers said this is the fourth time the shelter has been devastated by flooding. The staff says they're trying to move out of the current facility, which is in a flood zone.
They say their goal is to be in a new facility by next year, but that will only happen with more funding and donations. Click here to learn about how you can help.