08/15/2026
We don't post much here at Windswept but I do feel like I need to over an incident that happened this morning. It's going around a couple of the Magic Valley pet groups that we here at Windswept are holding onto missing pets and not notifying the pound or trying to find their owners.
We do have a few permanent residents here, we are also boarding pets for the Jerome Animal Shelter, and a few of the rescues here in the valley and even down into Utah.
We have never held onto a dog without trying to find their owners. We have held onto dogs found on highway 93 and kept them safe until their owners could be located. Bayley Miller has gone out in the middle of the night to pick up dogs after car accidents and the highway patrol have reached out to rescues to find them a safe place to spend the night. We've held dogs for rescues that that been found wandering in the median of the freeway until a foster could be found. We've reunited stray dogs found wandering around Jerome and even helped with getting them a microchip in the off chance they managed to be an escape artist again.
I personally have dogs at home that we adopted from local rescues after they had been at our facility for months on end with no interest. My husband and I have taken multiple dogs home to foster, or just run in a grass yard for a few days and get a break from being boarded. We've opened our facility to seven cats to live their best life here with full run of the place.
This morning I asked an employee to go home after a disagreement with my kennel manager. I didn't have the time to do a formal written write-up or explain why cussing at another employee was unacceptable. I just asked her to go home. She was not fired. She was certainly not fired, "After speaking up about abuse," happening at our facility.
I'm now finding her daughter posting all over the Magic Valley pet groups spreading half-truths about us, and even the Jerome Animal Shelter had to get involved and make a post disputing her claims.
Do we have long-term residents here? Yes, we do. One dog was abandoned by his owner while boarding. Some dogs were found out by the shooting range on 93. Have we reached out to rescues in the area to help us? Absolutely, we have. We got them neutered and spayed with their help. One was found to have lymphoma and was placed in a palliative care home to peacefully live out the short remains of her life, and I truly believe that's why she was dumped in the desert.
All the rescues around here are full to overflowing with abandoned and neglected dogs. Their resources are strained beyond what they can give, and there is always another dog pulled from a shelter before euthanasia, another dog found wounded and dumped, puppies from people who won't do right by their pets by spaying and neutering, dying from parvo that can be prevented with a few shots picked up at the local feed store.
How easy is it to find a home for an older pit bull, or a dog with a bite history, or a dog that requires someone to sit outside a kennel desperately trying to make friends with it growling and snarling at you? How easy is it to find a home for a large dog that can only be with small dogs, no cats, no livestock, submissive dogs only, especially when there are dogs with urgent medical needs or are in danger of being euthanized? These dogs are not here because we want to hoard them. They are here because they are in a safe place and there is always a pet with a more urgent need. We elected to give them a place to live, knowing we might not find a rescue to take them on because it was the right thing to do.
I would absolutely rather see them in a loving home. We aren't a shelter; we aren't a rescue. We aren't a place selling dogs for profit. We reach out to rescues for help and offer our help.
