Description
MarrVelous Pet Rescues & Adoptions was officially formed in April 2007. Joy Martin, Broker/Owner of Marr Properties and American Caribbean Real Estate, has always been teased about having an ability to have animals find her. On a camping trip in Central Florida, there was an abandoned hunting dog that suffered hind muscle atrophy from his elongated time spent in a cage. Park Rangers asked for someone to please take the dog so he would not have to be put down. Joy and her husband Brad volunteered to take the dog and brought him home, got him a veterinarian for treatment, and began searching for a new home for him. Since Joy has a real estate company, filled with animal lovers (although some needed to be converted), she thought why not put him in our real estate ad? Well, the next thing you know, someone came in wanting to adopt "Trooper." On Easter Sunday 2007, while out horseback riding in Homestead, Joy, Brad and several friends found a big planting bucket on the side of the road - inside was our first litter of dumped puppies left in the sun to die. Unfortunately one of the sweetest pups, known as Molly, had an intestinal obstruction from eating a plant pod and required life-saving surgery. We sent out an e-mail and got a generous response with donations to cover her surgery. Sadly, little Molly did not survive, but everyone involved decided that it was time to get more serious about helping rescue more animals. It was then that our initial Board of Directors was formed and we began the process to become a 501c3 non-profit animal rescue dedicated to finding homes for animals in need.
Through this process, we have discovered many other animal lovers. We have also found that people love to pet-work with their animals and we are trying on a local level to provide pet-working opportunities - see our EVENTS page. We try to help any animal we can, but we are limited by the amount of foster homes we have at any given time. All our animals live in foster care until they are adopted. This provides a nurturing environment and allows us to expose the animals socially as well introduce them to home life. We typically know a lot about our animals from their foster families and that allows us to make the best matches. Through the internet, we are able to widely promote all our animals and adopt them throughout the United States; we even have had some international inquires. We love to hear from our adoptive parents with follow up stories, photos and updates. A difficult economy is not only hard on people, but animals too, and we have had an increase in owner surrenders as a result. When people can no longer care for the animals we try to help find them loving homes so all can move on with their lives. We have had opportunities to pet-work and assist other rescues, humane societies and shelters, and have helped them when asked; it is all about the animals. We have been privileged to have placed several hundred animals as of 2009! We invite you to visit with any member of our Board of Directors for more information on MarrVelous Pet Rescues & Adoptions.
