‘Treasured asset’
Man honored for work with rescue animals
Visitors are announced with a lot of barking, jumping on metal fences and tail-wagging at the J.R. Willey home in rural Faulkner County.
Willey knows the name of every rescue dog at his home — all 30 of them — and four rescue horses.
And the 73-year-old knows each of their stories — one was saved from a fire; another one was found with 11 puppies in a driveway culvert; another one was hit by a car. Many of the dogs were on a list to be euthanized until he and his wife, Pat, 72, stepped in.
The Faulkner County Quorum Court passed a resolution April 18 recognizing Willey as a “treasured asset” to the county for his work with animals. County Judge Jim Baker declared April 21 as J.R. Willey Day in Faulkner County.
Willey said the honor was a surprise. “I still have not figured out why they selected me. I don’t feel like I’ve done that awfully much, but Judge Baker seems to feel differently — and the Quorum Court.”
The resolution states that Willey has provided “a crucial and necessary service
by sheltering and socializing dogs that, hopefully, will later be adopted, and a large part of the expense is borne by him.
“J.R. Willey has dedicated his time and resources to providing love and support to dogs in need in Faulkner County. … It would serve other communities in Faulkner County well to have someone as dedicated to serve as J.R. Willey.”
Willey, who lives outside the city limits of Conway, said he and Pat have taken in rescue dogs for about 12 years.
Donna Clawson, a retired schoolteacher and a member of the Faulkner County Animal Shelter Advisory Board, said she met J.R. after the 2011 Vilonia tornado when they trained to be on the Faulkner County Animal Response Team.
“He is just so good,” Clawson said. “He’s just got this gentle spirit; when you’re around him, you’re just calm. He’s a great guy, just real unassuming. His wife could have gotten that award with him.”
J.R. agreed.
“She has a love for the puppies, and I like the big dogs,” J.R. said.
J.R. said he marvels at the way Pat can bottle-feed multiple puppies, recalling when they had 20 at the same time.
Pat said she put them in a plastic tub and took them to bed with her.
“When I heard them stirring, I’d warm up their formula,” she said, adding that she microwaved socks filled with rice to keep the puppies warm.
On a recent sunny day, four Labrador puppies were playing in a pen by themselves. In other pens on the property, Chihuahuas, beagle mixes, Australian shepherds, boxers, an Anatolian shepherd and Heinz 57s, as Willey calls the unknown breeds, were separated into groups of two or more to be socialized.
“We have everything from, I think these puppies are 10 pounds now, up to 110 pounds,” he said.
“The bigger dogs are typically outside in fenced-yard areas. Every dog has his own house. The smaller dogs, Chihuahuas, the ones that don’t do well outside, are inside in crates [at night]. The ones inside are all housebroken,” he said. “In nice weather, they love to be out, too.”
In extremely cold or hot weather, all the dogs come into a climate-controlled garage, he added.
As J.R. gave a tour of the property, he had a Rottweiler-Labrador mix, Baker, on a leash. Baker is being treated for heartworms.
“The ones we get off the street, so to speak, or dropped off — worst-case scenario, many are heartworm positive, and to be adoptable, we have to treat them,” he said. “That’s our biggest cost, treating heartworm-positive dogs. That can run $350 for each dog.”
The Willeys get discounts from some veterinarians for services, and the city’s shelter dogs already have their vaccinations. Sometimes the Willeys pay for surgeries, too.
The couple have three sons who sometimes joke with their parents about keeping so many dogs, J.R. said.
“They’ll say Pat and I have gone to the dogs, and I say, ‘No, but your inheritance money sure has,’” J.R. said, laughing.
“That’s just the way it is; it’s for the animals,” he said. “Periodically, somebody will come by and donate $100 or something.”
J.R. said keeping all the animals means the couple can’t travel, but they are used to that after years of having a farm.
The Willeys both grew up in Ohio — J.R. in a rural area and Pat on a farm — and after they were married, they owned a “hobby” farm. J.R. spent his career as a plumber, pipefitter and welder for commercial construction projects. The couple would move to an area for two to four years while he worked on a project.
He said they moved to Arkansas in the late ’80s. They bought land and raised cattle for a while, but they sold all but about 100 acres in Barney, north of Enola. They always had a dog or two.
Willey said their rescue efforts started when a friend of his called after two cars hit her dog. She asked him to take the dog before her children got home from school.
Lucy, a dachshund, had a broken pelvis, and the woman wanted to rehome him. Willey said he talked to the Humane Society of Faulkner County, who asked if he could foster the dog. He nursed that dog back to health and kept him.
The Willeys worked with the Humane Society for many years, but he said the organization started focusing on spay-and-neutering instead of fostering.
“We wanted to stay with the rescue; here we are today. We average about 30 rescue dogs,” he said. “We work very closely with Conway Animal Welfare. When [Shonna Osborne, director of the Conway Animal Welfare Unit] gets overcrowded or has dogs that need fostered, she’ll call us instead of euthanizing.”
Case in point is Oliver, a beagle-and-basset-hound mix who almost didn’t make it.
“He looked like he was vacuum-packed. All you could see was ribs and skin,” J.R. said, pointing to the little dog who came up to the fence. The dog weighed 11 pounds when they got him; Pat said he’s “pushing 20 pounds” now.
J.R. said Oliver and many of his rescue dogs, once they are deemed adoptable, will be placed on transports that go to New England or other Northern states that have strict spay-and-neuter laws.
“They do not have the stray dogs running around there like we do in the South,” he said.
Faulkner County officials for years have discussed the stray-animal problem, and a fund for a county shelter was established. Proceeds from a voluntary 1.5-mill property tax have accumulated since 2005. The Faulkner County Quorum Court has a resolution that no construction will start on the shelter until the account reaches $1.5 million so the shelter has operating funds, too.
Justice of the Peace Randy Higgins of Greenbrier has worked on the issue for years. He is chairman of the Faulkner County Quorum Court Courts and Public Safety Committee, which is overseeing development of the shelter.
“We’ve got about $1.2 million and some change; we have appropriated $30,000 to start working on plans,” he said.
However, he said a site for a shelter has not been chosen. A sign announcing the shelter was placed on Faulkner County Justice Building property on South German Lane, but that site hasn’t been approved.
Also, the debate has gone on for years whether to operate a county shelter or combine it with the city shelter.
“What people have to realize, the city can’t take county dogs,” Willey said. “The dogs that are loose in the county, what does anybody do with them? There’s nowhere to take them. So many get shot, run over. It’s sad.”
Dogs have been dropped off at the Willeys’ home, but they don’t welcome it.
“The most we’ve had is 50; that’s too many,” J.R. Willey said.
Willey knows that keeping as many dogs as they do raises a few eyebrows, but he said they are not hoarders.
“The difference between a hoarder and what we do, we don’t keep the dogs typically for an extended length of time. We have been involved with some cases where hoarders have had to give up their dogs, and we have been involved in taking some of those dogs,” he said.
The first time J.R. acquired a rescue horse happened when a law enforcement officer got a call one weekend about the horse, which had tried to jump a fence and had impaled itself on a steel post. “It was under the right shoulder. The veterinarian said it just missed its heart by an inch,” Willey said.
No one claimed the horse, so Osborne called from the Conway Animal Welfare Unit, and J.R. took it and named him Lucky. He acquired another horse, Twinkie, when a friend died, and Jo Jo was abandoned by its owners at a boarding facility. He bought Hope from a rescue group that saved the horse from slaughter.
He bought Thunder for the couple’s 13-year-old granddaughter, Karlee Frank, who participates in rodeos. He said she also helps him almost every day with the dogs.
“The ones out of Conway Animal Welfare, they have to vaccinate and name them immediately; the other ones — usually, the granddaughter will play with them a little while, and in about a day, she’ll name them. She’s very animaloriented,” he said.
Willey said he and his wife plan to keep taking care of rescue dogs as long as they can.
“It’s just for the love of the animals. Our goal is to find homes for these dogs — as long as [the prospective owners] are safe, and we feel they are in the dogs’ best interest.”
Higgins said that’s exactly why Willey deserved the Quorum Court’s recognition.
“What a good guy to get in there and do what he’s done,” Higgins said.”He hasn’t done it for personal gain; he hasn’t done it for notoriety. He just got in there and did the right thing.”