This is where you will find articles written about LRBDR!

Little Red Barn Dog Rescue: Giving comfort and joy to pooches

Little Red Barn Dog Rescue of Rice Lake had the most liked tree among voters in the first annual Christmas Tree Walk.

It is a nonprofit business in its first year that many never even knew existed.

Co-founder and president is Ryan Mlejnek and  co-founder and vice president is Maureen Mlejnek. Vail Mani is the executive manager.

The LRBDR website states:  “We are a small rescue located in the heart of the northwoods of Wisconsin. A family- started dog rescue, we strive to improve the lives of dogs in need until we locate their forever families.

“After seeing the need for help in our southern state neighbors while managing the local humane society, we could not turn a blind eye to the suffering we witnessed, and hence Little Red Barn Dog Rescue was created!

“While we are not a large rescue, and will be working out of our home, we are committed to helping those we can while offering temporary housing with permanent love. Please stick with us while we work through all the red tape, hiccups, and inevitable cries for help! We appreciate your support, encouragement and thinking of our residents when looking for a family member to add to your home.”

Maureen Mlejnek filled in some additional details over the past weekend. She shared, “The concept of our nonprofit dog rescue started to form during November/December 2019. We are located just outside of Rice Lake on [Highway] SS, and our goal is to not only improve the lives of our furry residents, but to prove ourselves a valuable asset to our community when needed.

“Vail and I [Maureen] were both co-managers at the Humane Society of Barron County. LRBDR received our first transfer dogs late January 2020 —three dogs, Mando, Max, Kilo.

“Originally our plan was to assist 50 dogs in our first year, as we were paying for everything out of pocket (from medical to outdoor fencing and everything between.)

The co-founder continued, “That 50-dog goal quickly came, and we found ourselves on our way to assisting 100 dogs. Vail joined us soon after, and then everything really got moving. Vail is currently our only employee, and the one person I knew I wanted to go with on this journey, but in the future we would like to have the rescue have the financial stability of hiring on two or three more caregivers.

“Vail and I are hands on for every single dog that comes to us. There is not one dog that comes to our rescue that we don’t physically touch, medically treat, train and comfort.

“We have a very small foster pool, and those fosters mainly care for small breed dogs to avoid stress around the large dogs, underage pups not ready for adoption and dogs in need of medical care prior to adoption.

“We have now reached 250 dogs assisted in 11 months,” Maureen said. “Besides assisting 250 dogs so far, we have also started community programs.

“We do monthly free microchip clinics for community members and their dogs. These are prepaid, lifetime registered chips; our goal with the microchip clinics is to better assist our animal control officers, police and Happy Tales stray hold facility in reuniting lost dogs.

“We have also started an early education reading program,  and delivered our first books to classrooms in October,” she said. “All books in this program are animal care related, focusing on shelter and rescue animals.

“The first book, ‘Belly Rubbins for Bubbins,’ was donated to classrooms all over Barron County to open a discussion about proper animal care.

“The next book on our reading list will be donated in February.”

She added, “We have also donated well over $5,000 in monetary and needed care items to Barron County animal welfare groups including:  Humane Society of Barron County, Here to the Rescue, Community Cat Coalition, People for Animal Welfare of Barron County and Purple Cat Mobile Vet Clinic.

“We have sponsored surgeries for these organizations, spay/neuter certificates, food and supplies,” she said.

“Our primary animal care veterinary clinics are Animal Hospital North and Animal Hospital of Chetek with Dr. Khan and Dr. Schuster, but we have also had the privilege of working with Dr. Woods and Dr. Cook at Rice Lake Animal Hospital, Dr. Hansen at Barron Veterinary Clinic and Dr. Ruppel at Northern Lakes Veterinary Clinic — along with so many amazing vet techs.”

Memorial donation has tails wagging at dog rescue

Tails are wagging and excitement is building at the Little Red Barn Dog Rescue of Rice Lake after the unexpected memorial gift of $19,740 from the will of Mary Wick of Stillwater, Minn., formerly of Turtle Lake.

The lifetime dog lover died in January, but not before putting five charities in her will, including the local dog rescue. She and her five brothers — Kevin, Jim, Paul, Mark and Pat — had a dachshund as a family dog while growing up in Turtle Lake, and she had other dogs throughout the course of her life.

“She had dogs forever,” said brother Pat of Turtle Lake, who with wife Sue and brother Mark of Comstock stopped by the local dog rescue on July 13 with the undisclosed donation in an envelope.

Maureen Mlejnek, vice president and full-time volunteer at the dog rescue, remarked, “It was completely unexpected. We had no idea Mary had written us in her will.”

Mlejnek said the donor never even got a chance to visit the rescue in person, but she was an ardent supporter of it through its Facebook page.

Pat agreed. “She followed them extensively on Facebook. She was always impressed by the good they did.”

That “good” includes rescuing 126 dogs so far in 2021 and microchipping 255 dogs.

The rescue’s vice president said with the generous memorial gift they will be able to do even much more “good.”

Mlejnek said when they saw the amount of the donation they started crying because it will go a long way toward their dream to expand their facility.

“We’ve been working so hard to raise money for an addition,” she said of their plans for a 70-by-40-foot addition with a 24-by-24-foot medical/storage attachment. With the memorial donation included they will have raised about $60,000 of their goal to raise $175,000.

Trusting that the community will help them realize their dream, trees have already been cut down and cleared on the site of the proposed addition, Mlejnek said. Before freeze up they plan to have a new septic tank and well installed with a concrete foundation laid in October.

The Wick family can be sure that their sister will be recognized with a plaque on the new addition that will include a photo of Mary Wick and her dog.

“We are just trying to think of ways to honor Mary and bring awareness to her kindness to us before her passing,” Mlejnek said. “We so appreciate it we keep crying. Hundreds of dogs will benefit from this.”

Thrift Shop paying it forward

In a related update, the thrift shop at the Cedar Mall that opened in March has done so well that it has signed a one-year lease and increased its hours to seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. While it is no longer in partnership with Here to the Rescue at the store, the groups still work together to help Barron County animals. LRBDR  has also worked with the Community Cat Rescue and Adoption Center and recently did a microchipping class at the cat center so their volunteers could learn how to chip their kitties. The dog rescue also donated 12 prepaid microchips to them.

Mlejnek said because of the community members who continue to bring in donations, the thrift shop has been able to use 10% of funds to help out a different rescue organization each month, either local, state or national.

“Each month we have been able to send about $500 to a rescue,” she said.

In June, Biggie Paws of Salem received the funds, and July’s recipient will be West Texas Diamond in the Rough in Kermit, Texas.

For more information on the dog rescue, go to littleredbarndogrescue.org or on Facebook @LRBDogRescue.

Dog Rescue donates electronic dogs and cats to Daybreak respite program

The Little Red Barn Dog Rescue has donated three dogs and six cats to the Daybreak respite care program of Barron County. The furry, wiggling, barking and purring pets don’t shed nor scratch, neither do they require food or a litterbox. That’s because they are electronic.

“I would have never dreamed of the smiles and grins that they bring,” said Shellie Lyste, Daybreak director. “I can’t believe the joy and contentment that comes with holding these animals. We want to thank the Little Red Barn Dog Rescue for their generosity and the joy they bring to our Daybreak group.”

Who Rescued Who charity dinner, raffle raises nearly $40,000

Staff and volunteers are smiling and tails are wagging with the results of the Who Rescued Who charity dinner and raffle for the Little Red Barn Dog Rescue on Saturday evening at the Rice Lake Elks Lodge.

On Sunday, founder Maureen Mlejnek posted on its Facebook page that the first-time event raised $38,775.

Mlejnek remarked, “We want to thank the Elks Club and their amazing staff for hosting our first Who Rescued Who charity dinner. Thank you to the donors who made this event possible, all of the volunteers who put in so much work to pull it off and all of the amazing guests. We hope you had as much fun as we did.

“The last month has been stressful, not only pulling together such an event but also handling the daily chaos of the rescue,” she said. But she knows the effort was worthwhile and is looking forward to the second annual event. “We are already pulling together ideas on how to make next year’s even better.”

She said they used as little funds as possible, less than $2,000, on decorations, gifts, advertising, music and fees so the balance raised can be spent to enlarge the rescue and make lives better for even more dogs.

Mlejnek commented, “In four short hours we raised nearly $40,000 and that far surpassed our hopes. From the bottom of our hearts and the tips of every wagging tail at LRBDR, thank you.”