Okay, this is my first time using a forum, so bear with me if I don't know all the protocal yet.......I am looking for any ideas concerning a situation that we will have to resolve in the next few months to the next few years. My Mother-in-law, also an animal-lover, lives in rural Alabama and has taken in strays all of her life to keep them from starving or being killed on the road. Now that she is nearing 80, she still has 8 dogs that she feeds and shelters. When she is no longer able to take care of them, we want to bring the dogs to Illinois, but cannot keep them at our home because we live in the suburbs and are stuck where we are till retirement, and there is a 2 dog limit. Ideally, we are interested in finding someone, within about an hour's drive of Chicago, who has enough land and would allow us to put up a kennel and outdoor pens. We would ask this person to feed and give the dogs water during the week, and we would drive out on the weekends to visit and take care of all their other needs. We don't want to split the dogs up or put them up for adoption because they are part of our family, and also because they would be hard to adopt out since all are middle-aged and not housebroken, since they have lived outside their entire lives. We would be willing to pay for the space and caretaking, including all food and medical, but as we have many expenses, including the dogs we already have in Illinois, we are looking for something affordable on a long-term basis. For example, a retired person who has some time on his hands and is looking to supplement his income on his own property. Anyway, that is the "ideal" that we came up with, but we are looking for any suggestions for affordable life-long housing for these dogs. Again, this is not an urgent problem, but it is one that can become urgent at any time and it would be great to have a plan in place, as right now it is causing many sleepless nights! Thanks for your help and time in reading this!
