Make a Difference

A Jack Russell terrier pup who was found running on the highways around Newark Airport has been rescued and is slowly healing at the Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge (RBARI) in Oakland where he will await his fur-ever home.

For weeks, reports came in of the Jack Russell terrier pup, since named Monkey, running around the busy and dangerous highways near the airport.

A Jack Russell Terrier puppy that was wandering around the busy highways near Newark Liberty International Airport for weeks was finally rescued on Saturday.

Buddah Dog Rescue & Recovery safely trapped the puppy, now named Monkey, though it is still unclear how he got there, according to a statement from the Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge, a no kill animal shelter in Oakland that is caring for him.

A stray dog that spent weeks running around the dangerous highways near Newark Liberty International Airport is now safe and sound at an animal rescue in Bergen County.
Affectionately named Monkey by rescuers, the small brown and white dog was spotted on heavily traveled roads in Newark. In a post on Facebook, Buddha Dog Rescue & Recovery in Blairstown said their team responded to the area to capture the dog after being notified that the animal could potentially be in danger. He was brought to safety and later transferred to Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge in Oakland on what's known as a "stray hold" for care and rehabilitation.
"Monkey has found healing with our experienced dog kennel staff at RBARI following weeks of running the dangerous highways outside the Newark Airport. After a period of decompression, we are working with Monkey to overcome his fears," Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge said in an online post.

A lesson learned in Hebrew school benefited a local animal shelter.

Young Seth learned about giving back to his community and decided to put those lessons to use by raising money and donating it to the Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge.

Seth is making New Jersey proud.

Over the past four months, three local animal rescues have been working together to rescue 16 dogs from a retiring breeder in Blairstown. Over the last week, the breeder released the remaining nine dogs, marking the end of a "decade of breeding horrors."

A group of rescuers from the Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge, Inc. (RBARI), Second Chance Pet Adoption League, and A Pathway to Hope have been steadfastly working to take in the "designer" dogs. The rescuers were not permitted inside of the barn that the dogs called home, but as each one emerged, they were "trembling and terrified," according to RBARI.

The Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge and Jersey Pits Rescue are trying to save three tiny puppies found cold, sickly, and malnourished outside of the Paterson shelter on Thursday.

The three puppies, which appear to be some sort of micro breed of Boston terrier, are about eight weeks old and are all male, according to a post on the RBARI Facebook page. They are all severely underweight and frightened.

Paterson Animal Control and a handful of involved shelters and rescue groups have made significant progress in a mass cat rescue at a home in Paterson where 120 cats and kittens were found on Feb. 15.

This mass rescue comes after the elderly woman who lives in the three-floor home called with what Paterson's Chief Animal Control Officer John DeCando described as a cry for help. Since then, around 80 cats and kittens have been removed from the home.

As of early Monday morning, there were 30 to 40 cats left, DeCando said.

Donna Moussa of Homeless Tails and Samantha Agosta of FOWA Rescue went into the house and retrieved 10 more cats at around 10 a.m. on Monday morning. Two volunteers from the West Milford Animal Shelter waited outside the home. They took five of the 10 cats to their shelter.

All of the cats that have been successfully removed have been taken in by Homeless Tails, Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge, St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center, FOWA Rescue and other local shelters, where they are receiving any necessary medical treatment and will be put up for adoption.

Meanwhile, one of the pet rescuers helping to take on these cats is the Ramapo Bergen Animal Refuge in Oakland. The facility has 15 of those 180 cats. They are being spayed and neutered, treated for chronic infection and microchipped.

The cats were covered in fleas and mites and many had serious eye infections that required the surgical removal of eyes.

Megan Duemmer, with Ramapo Bergen Animal Refuge, said that one kitten named Pineapple’s eye has “already been removed. When we spayed her we took that eye out and she’s a lot more comfortable now.”

Paterson Animal Control, Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge and a handful of other rescues and shelters are working together on a mass rescue after 120 cats and kittens were found in a home in Paterson.

Just days after becoming the first person with pulmonary fibrosis to make it to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Adam Faatz was working as an endangered species specialist when he came across an animal in need.

Faatz, a Hawthorne native now living in Highland Lakes, and his team were approached last month by Sawyer, a 2-year-old cat, while documenting raptor nests in Harriman State Park in New York. Temperatures had plunged below 20 degrees, and Sawyer was thin, weak and nearly frozen.

"He just lay there and was super easy to scoop up," said Faatz, a military veteran. "Sawyer immediately started purring and meowing. Mostly his cuteness got me, made me want to help. I couldn't morally leave him to die and become eagle food."

Photos of Sawyer, a two-year-old cat that was rescued from Harriman State Park in New York.
Faatz made the 3-mile hike back to his car with Sawyer wrapped in his jacket. He then took the cat to Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge in Oakland, where it was determined that Sawyer was positive for feline immunodeficiency virus and suffering from the effects of malnutrition.