Meet the Buckeye residents helping stray animals

Thirteen years ago, Lilia Mutka realized she had a calling.

With a degree in networking communications, the Buckeye resident was working in real estate when she decided to start rescuing animals from the West Valley.

“Honestly, it’s really a very unusual thing. I think it’s God’s calling,” Mutka said.

Now, Mutka has about 100 animals at her home in Buckeye. She had to stop taking in dogs for the time being, but she also has everything from cats to guinea pigs to snakes, and even two domesticated ducks.

Every day, Mutka receives a minimum of 25 calls. People call her to tell her they’ve found a lost dog, a stray cat or a dumped dog in the middle of the desert.

This year, Mutka has taken in about 400 animals at the nonprofit Buckeye Animal Rescue & Kennel (BARK), which she runs at her home. While she has one paid employee, she largely relies on volunteers, with most of the animal food and cat litter coming from donations. She’s been able to run her rescue for so long because her husband runs a construction company, taking care of most of the family’s bills.

“There is no money in rescue,” Mutka said with a laugh.

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Why are there so many stray animals in the Valley?

It’s a growing problem in the Buckeye area and the Valley as a whole. Kim Powell, communications officer for Maricopa County Animal Care & Control, said the shelter, which only takes in dogs, is currently operating far beyond capacity. But things have changed over the past few years, Powell said.

Many people got dogs when they were home at the start of the pandemic, Powell said. But the pandemic accelerated the national veterinarian shortage, and many couldn’t get in to get their dogs spayed or neutered or weren’t able to afford it. And with most now back to work, some people simply could no longer take care of their dogs.

“People went back to work and realized they don’t have time for the dog, so they’ll turn the dog into us, feeling like they have no other option,” Powell said.

But the shelter is taking some measures to help people figure out if they can keep their pets, Powell said. It recently hired for a second shelter diversion navigator position. If someone cannot keep their dog because they’re moving into a new apartment complex or for financial reasons, the shelter diversion navigators are able to help them find resources to hopefully keep their pet. While Maricopa County Animal Care & Control gets most of its dogs from the South Phoenix area, most of BARK's dogs come from Avondale.

The shelter diversion program was also started to address the issue of people dumping their dogs, Powell said. People might abandon their dogs because they feel they have no other option or fear judgement for taking their pet to a shelter.

It’s an issue that Mutka has also seen out in the Buckeye area. Mutka said she usually takes in more dogs that have been dumped than dogs that are lost, since lost dogs typically have someone looking for them, whether that be by posting to social media or contacting shelters and police departments. Lost dogs might be microchipped, healthy-looking and have short nails.

Dumped dogs are typically dirty with longer nails and are infested with fleas or ticks, Mutka said. Last month, BARK took in two puppies that had such bad tick infestations their ear canals were completely blocked. If the ticks were simply pulled off, the puppies would have likely died from blood loss.

Mutka took them in, treated their ticks and got them on an antibiotic for tick borne diseases, which they had to be on for 21 days. The puppies just recently got adopted.

Whenever animals get adopted from BARK, new owners must sign a 4-page contract stating that, if their living situation should change, the animal will be brought back to BARK to help prevent more animals from going on the street. In addition to dogs and cats, Mutka also took in several goats that were dumped in the Tolleson area.

Mutka also has a several wolfdogs — which are a hybrid of a domesticated dog — and peacocks given up by people who realized the animals were too wild to care for. Two wolfdogs kept getting out and killing their neighbors' livestock before the neighborhood made a plan to shoot the dogs before contacting a wolf sanctuary in Colorado who then contacted Mutka.

"They shouldn't be pets," Mutka said.

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Buckeye residents help keep feral populations under control

It’s a different story when it comes to feral dogs, Mutka said, which are stray dogs born in the wild. For those projects, BARK will typically lean on actual trapping organizations like the Humane Animal Rescue & Trapping Team. Mutka has then taken in some of those dogs, since they oftentimes cannot be rehabilitated to the point of living in a home but are happy to live in a pack at BARK. Wolf hybrids, for example, should not be pets at all, Mutka said.

Mutka said she also sometimes deals with feral cats, with the population currently exploding in Old Town Buckeye. There isn’t much that can be done with feral cats since most over 4 months old are too wild to be brought into a home, Mutka said. About 92% of the kittens that BARK does get are able to be homed, which are typically brought in by people who do trap-neuter-release (TNR).

TNR refers to catching a cat and getting it spayed or neutered before releasing it back into its colony. It helps to keep feral cat populations under control.

Catherine Kang has been living in Buckeye since 2012. She saved a few cats in the Sundance area, but didn’t really notice the high population of feral cats until she moved to the Old Town area about five years ago. She noticed a small, emaciated kitten around the Family Dollar store. Having previously volunteered in animal rescue, Kang followed the kitten behind the store where she found dozens of cats.

Kang was able to get some of the kittens into rescues, but started to get involved with TNR when it came to the older feral cats, looking for resources to get the cats fixed for free or at a low cost.

“When you do a TNR project you really need to try to get to all the cats in the colony to gain control over it,” Kang said.

While that colony is still there, Kang said it’s now under control with just a handful of cats left. But Kang has ended up taking over other colonies, such as one behind an elementary school, which Kang got under control from 20 cats to now just a handful of cats.

TNR is difficult in the Buckeye area because there are very few resources and few places located within a short distance, Kang said. While there used to be a mobile vet clinic that came to the area occasionally, it no longer comes.

And no local vets have shown interest in participating in low-cost TNR, Kang said, with the veterinarian shortage compounding the problem. It’s also difficult to find people who would want to pay to fix a cat that isn’t theirs, along with driving it all the way to Phoenix where a few clinics do low-cost spaying and neutering.

It’s easy for the problem to get out of control since it only takes one feral cat to start a colony. And some cats that aren’t feral still roam free, which could also be contributing to cat colonies. Although not feral cats, Mutka once rescued 97 cats from a single studio apartment, with the population quickly exploding.

It’s hard to fix the problem because those that help are essentially volunteers, Mutka said.

“Honestly, I think if we had the funding, we could do more work. But it’s difficult, you know? It’s so limited on the resources that are out there, and you don’t know it’s a problem until it’s in your face,” Mutka said.

Mutka plans on retiring at some point in the future, citing exhaustion and a need to focus on her family and grandchildren. She's already cut back, having only taken in about 400 animals so far this year in comparison to 2,000 in 2018. Mutka and her husband recently bought 6 acres of land in Mayer, where they plan to build a sanctuary and take the animals that are adoptable. BARK might continue doing some adoptions, but not at the current scale.

"I can't save all of them. But I can save the ones I do," Mutka said.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Maricopa County shelters are overwhelmed with stray animals