Pensacola's Phoenix Rising Rescue doing its part to find homes for neglected, abused dogs

Six to eight loads of laundry every day. Crazy, right?

Well, Jake from State Farm can soil a lot of linen and dirty a bunch of blankets. It's not just Jake from State Farm who filthies up things. It's leery London too. And mama Birdie and her six babies can make a mighty mess.

They're all dogs at Phoenix Rising Rescue, a rescue group located off Chemstrand Road that specializes in finding homes for pitbulls, pit mixes and other bully breeds. (Jake from State Farm got his name because he has a red coat similar to you know who.)

Carrie Turner founded Phoenix Rising in 2014 to help combat the high euthanasia rates among pitbulls and to counter the stigma surrounding the breed. She had never owned a pitbull before and didn't really know much about them.

"Before I fostered pit puppies, I didn't know anything about the breed,'' said Turner, who lives in the Phoenix Rising Rescue facility with her husband, Rob Turner. "My mindset was like most people who don't know much about them. I had only heard about pitbulls through the media and wondered if they were going to be trouble. Are they just going to snap sometimes? I did a lot of research beforehand and had experience working with animals as a vet technician. I found out they were smart and easy to train and can be so loving and devoted."

Since its inception, Phoenix Rising Rescue has adopted out about 2,500 dogs, mostly pitbull mixes. Most of the dogs Turner takes in have been found neglected in streets, abused at homes and lived previously hard and often frightful lives.

Turner agreed to foster her first pitbull, Brooklyn, about 12 years ago, after the family - husband Ron and now-17-year-old son Shepard - lost their beloved Suzy, a yellow lab. Today, Brooklyn is part of the family and has his own place in the Turner home, away from the basement kennels where dogs await their own permanent homes.

Phoenix Rising Rescue is part of the family home in a subdivision north of Ten Mile Road. The family gets the house and the dogs get the big basement with various kennels, as well as the sloping, fenced in backyard where the dogs, often timid and scared when they arrive, learn to socialize with other dogs and people.

A handful of dogs, including Jake from State Farm and a sweet-natured, pit-mix puppy named Frannie, scamper about, pulling on chew toys and running around sniffing a couple of visitors who had come by. Nearby, London, who came to Phoenix Rising Rescue in January pregnant and suffering from abuse, eyed the strangers warily, even spewing a few low-decibel anxious growls. London is the longest current Phoenix Rising dog looking for a home. Turner knows it's harder for her than some others.

"She can be afraid of men,'' Turner said. "She was severely abused and she came to us pregnant and raised her babies here. She's a wonderful dog, and she's great with the new dogs that come in. It can be a stressful and scary time for a new dog coming in. London is really great with them and usually has them playing soon."

Dan Lindemann's family has supported Phoenix Rising Rescue for years. He found out about the group on Facebook - Phoenix Rising's Facebook page has 44,000 followers - and adopted his now-8-year-old Remmington from the group as a puppy. Lindemann owns A&J Mug Shop in downtown Pensacola and Remmington is known as a "shop dog,'' always there when customers and visitors arrive.

"He's here every day,'' Lindemann said. "He has a bed by the window."

Lindemann's daughter, Caroline Brelsford, and her family adopted Brooks from Phoenix Rising Rescue in 2022. And her three sons, Jack, Hudson and Eli, all give up a portion of their Christmas presents each year to buy toys and materials for rescue dogs like Brooks. Caroline Brelsford also makes jewelry and Pensacola Beach ornaments featuring the photo-famous beachball water tower painted on them. Proceeds benefit Phoenix Rising Rescue and Amazing Grace Bully Rescue, another Pensacola bully breed rescue organization.

"I think it's a phenomenal organization and Carrie is a saint,'' Brelsford said. "She's so committed to those dogs and making sure they get the right homes. We just try to do our part to help them." This Christmas, the Brelsfords will hold their fourth holiday fundraiser for the two dog rescue groups. In recent years, the family has given each group around $500 for each fundraiser. Not a fortune. But that pays for a lot of laundry detergent, food, and the many other needs required to keep a rescue group like Phoenix Rising operational.

Phoenix Rising Rescue, like most rescue organizations, is strictly donor-based.

When Turner has a need for the dogs, she just puts out a post on Facebook.

"We have the best community behind us,'' Turner said. "The people of this community really take care of us."

Recently, she was running low on laundry detergent and put out a call on Facebook, right before a Phoenix Rising Rescue adoption event at Anderson Subaru in Pensacola. People showed up and loaded the group up with laundry pods for the ongoing laundry mission in the Kennell basement.

"We're funded 100 percent through donations,'' she said. "This community never lets us down."

That includes volunteers, who give time to help Turner care for the dogs and assist with daily duties such as laundry, feeding, playtime and cleaning up messes.

One of those volunteers is University of West Florida alum Morgan Blomberg, whose boyfriend's parents fostered some of Phoenix Rising's dogs when Turner traveled to Africa for a mission trip.

"I've followed them forever,'' Blomberg said, moments before taking a few of the dogs out to the yard to play. "I checked it out and learned they really do great things. One of the things that impresses me most is she is very diligent about the dogs going to the right homes."

That includes Turner and other volunteers ensuring the prospective family or owner has a home and yard suitable for one of their rescue dogs, and learning specifics about the family situation, including the number of children and other pets.

"So many of these dogs have lived horrible, brutal lives before coming here,'' Turner said. "I want to make sure they go to a situation where it's right and beneficial for them and the family."

But Turner and others in the rescue world know their efforts are but a swat against the overall problem of animal abuse, overbreeding and neglect in Northwest Florida, where so many shelters are full and rescue groups do what they can with limited resources.

All of the Phoenix Rising Rescue dogs are spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped.

"Spay and neuter - that's the answer to overpopulation,'' Turner said. "We also live in an area where our laws against abuse and neglect aren't strict enough. The county shelters can only do so much, and then it falls on the rescue groups and there's only so much we can do. I have 16 dogs now waiting to be rescued. There's just not enough space. It's a major problem. Sometimes I feel like we're trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon. We save some dogs, but for each one we do save, there are so many more that we can't. We're doing what we can do."

For more information on Phoenix Rising Rescue, including ways to help and adoption information, check out their Facebook page at Facebook.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Phoenix Rising Rescue saving pitbulls and bully breeds in Pensacola