ST. JOHN, N.D. — Keith Benning still can’t really believe it.
When he posted a video plea Dec. 23 to ask supporters of his Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue to donate $300,000 so the organization could buy the rescue’s building and land, he could barely say the number out loud.
Surely, that was an impossible request, he thought. Obviously, this was more than he could hope to raise — especially by the end of January. But it was the bare minimum needed to buy the property before the landlords sold it to someone else.
Without the building, Benning said in the video while cuddling a litter of tiny puppies, the nonprofit would have to close.
But he underestimated the following of this “accidental rescue,” which started 11 years ago when Benning took home two skinny, sickly strays. Today, the Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue has completed over 8,000 rescues, placed pets in 35 U.S. states plus two Canadian provinces and amassed a worldwide social media following of over 600,000.
By New Year’s Eve, over $200,000 in donations had flowed in. By the morning of Jan. 1, the rescue met its $300,000 goal.
Still, the donations kept coming — to the tune of over $372,000 by Friday, Jan. 3.
“I’m shocked, amazed, awed and very appreciative of it,” Benning told The Forum. “The generosity of people in such a small amount of time has been amazing. I’m still nervous because the deal is not done yet, but it puts us in a better place because every dollar we go over is less we have to take out of savings.”
Contributed / Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue
Benning figures a combination of donations and the rescue's savings will be needed to buy the rural Rolla, North Dakota, property, which will cost substantially more than $300,000.
Donors can now opt to earmark their gifts for badly needed upgrades and repairs inside the 2,400-square-foot building that houses its operations. “We use a lot of duct tape and zip ties,” he said. “This can go toward building more permanent things.”
Poverty + vet shortage = overpopulation
Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue has come a long way since 2014, when law enforcement officers found two malnourished, mange-riddled dogs in the freezing cold.
Benning, then a Rolette County deputy, volunteered to take them home.
Word quickly spread about the new deputy’s soft spot for homeless animals. His one-bedroom house became a de facto sanctuary for sick, abandoned and unwanted animals. “It kind of exploded,” he said.
Benning learned as he went along. “I really didn’t know anything about rescue,” he said.
But he saw strays were rampant in the remote area. The closest rescue was 118 miles away. The only animal control was a dog catcher, who euthanized all stray animals caught because there were so many of them.
Contributed / Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue
The area's isolation, coupled with widespread poverty fueled by a lack of job opportunities and public transportation, led to animal overpopulation. The locals actually already rescued many animals, he said, because so many of them took in these strays as pets. But local vets were scarce and people couldn't afford veterinary services, so many animals weren’t spayed or neutered.
“Anytime you get a combination of lack of affordable vet care and a situation of higher jobless rate, you’re going to have animal overpopulation,” he said.
Other independent rescuers before him had tried to help but typically burned out within a year. Benning recalls a dispatcher pulling him aside to say, “Hey, you’re a good guy and what you’re trying to do is a good thing. I have lived here for 40 years, and I have seen so many people try, then burn out. Don’t put yourself through it; just accept it for what it is.”
Benning responded by betting the dispatcher a 12-pack of beer that he would build an animal shelter. “I’m not buying him that beer,” Benning says today.
Adds pet food bank, neuter clinics
By 2015, Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue became an official nonprofit. A year later, Benning was able to move the operation into a 40-by-60 building on more than 200 acres of land northwest of Rolla.
After a major cleanup, it was furnished with donations, cast-off equipment and garage sale finds. A 1990 Dodge Ram van with holes in the floor transported animals to and fro.
Contributed / Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue
There was no lease. The out-of-state landlord just wanted someone to live there and keep an eye on the property. But Benning knew the location could be sold at any time.
“Luckily, the owners have been really cool with us,” he said. “But I’ve lived in fear for years that we were going to get a call that said, ‘Ok, we’re going to need you to go.'”
All the while, Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue grew,
adding a network of 150 volunteers,
offering advanced first-aid to animals and rescuing cats and horses as well as dogs. They also bring a Kansas veterinarian to the area four times a year to conduct free spay-and-neuter clinics and partner with the online pet-product company Chewy and the Humane Society to offer a pet food bank when owners need temporary help.
As a contingency plan, the rescue invested in a 30-acre plot of land and started drawing up plans for a new facility. But the process took a long time. They had no experience in proper shelter design until Benning could visit shelter-medicine facilities in Wisconsin and Berkeley, California. It was hard to find contractors to work in the remote area. And numerous efforts to drill well water on the new property failed to find water that wasn’t contaminated.
That means they own a shell of a building on the site, which has no electricity, water or HVAC.
So when the call finally came in December to tell them the rescue's facility would be sold, Benning knew they were in no position to relocate.
But there was light on the horizon. As soon as Benning's first video dropped, Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue's supporters rallied. A special Facebook group, called We Love Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue, was instrumental in spreading the word and generating donations. “They’ve just been working like crazy, and it’s really amazing the kindness and generosity of people,” he said.
Donors stepped up with matching funds. People from as far away as the United Kingdom and Italy watched the video. “The weird thing is the following overseas. We have people that watch the videos in 52 different countries,” he said.
Benning believes Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue fans are attracted to the transparency of the operation. “We don’t just show the good stuff but the bad stuff too. We show a lot of behind-the-scenes and how much work it is,” he said. “I think people appreciate that: being allowed to be let in and see how things work.”
He admits it’s been a tough road and he's felt burned out many times. “I have wanted to give up, to quit, to go back to having hobbies and free time without the looming dread that I’m failing the animals because I’m only working 14 hours instead of 16 hours.”
But something always arises — a puppy battling mange or an owner who was able to save their dog — to keep him moving forward.
And so it looks like he won’t be buying anyone that 12-pack anytime soon. “That slowly transformed into a saying I came up with: ‘You can’t fail if you don’t quit,’” he said. “So don’t quit.”
Give to Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue at
https://shorturl.at/ZIcC2.
