08/09/2026
An Important Update from Gunner’s Mission — and it’ll be a long one ❤️🐾
This is a post I have gone back and forth about making, but I believe transparency is important—especially to the people who have supported Gunner’s Mission from the beginning.
First, I want to make something very clear:
This is not a decision that was made overnight, nor is it the result of one incident.
This has been a phased transition for Gunner’s Mission for quite some time.
Those closest to us have known that I have been intentionally moving away from the traditional rescue side of animal welfare. A while back, my husband and Gunner’s Mission Co-Founder, Don Hughes, and I completely revamped our website and began restructuring the organization around the three P’s that represent where we believe we can make the greatest and most sustainable impact:
Prevention. Protection. Purpose.
Recent events have simply confirmed that it is time to complete that transition.
Effective immediately, Gunner’s Mission will no longer operate as a traditional animal rescue or routinely accept animals into our care.
When we started this mission, we knew rescue would be difficult. What I underestimated was just how difficult it becomes when you do not have a dedicated rescue facility, boarding space, professional trainers, or a large network of fosters to fall back on.
For us, “taking in a dog” doesn’t mean putting that animal into a kennel at a rescue facility.
It means that animal comes into our home.
It lives around our children, our family, and our personal animals.
Our home has essentially been the facility.
Unfortunately, we have also learned some very difficult lessons about owner surrenders.
There have been situations where incredibly important information regarding an animal’s behavior, temperament, aggression, bite history, or other significant concerns was minimized, withheld, or simply not disclosed.
When critical information about an animal being surrendered is not fully or accurately disclosed, the problem doesn’t disappear when that animal leaves its previous home.
The risk is simply transferred to the family trying to help.
And in our case, that risk has become too high.
Two of our personal dogs are currently dealing with significant leg injuries requiring veterinary care, and we are almost certain we are looking at surgery.
And then, last night, Chance was attacked.
Chance isn’t just my daughter’s new puppy. His name was chosen very intentionally.
After losing Gunner, there was a space in my daughter’s life that another dog could never simply replace. Gunner was her service dog, her companion, her security, and such a huge part of her world.
There is no replacing him.
But eventually, she was ready to open her heart to the possibility of what could come next.
So she named her new puppy Chance, because that’s exactly what he represents.
Another CHANCE.
Another chance for her to build that extraordinary bond with a dog.
Another chance at the security and independence a service dog can provide.
Another chance to have a four-legged partner beside her in the places where Gunner once stood.
Chance wasn’t brought into our home because we needed another dog—Lord knows we have plenty. He came into our lives carrying the hope of becoming something incredibly important for my daughter.
And last night, that five-month-old puppy was attacked without warning by an animal we had taken in because we were trying to help.
Watching the very thing we created to help animals put her Chance at risk was devastating, and it made something painfully clear to me.
I cannot continue opening our home to animals with unknown, incomplete, minimized, or inaccurately represented histories when doing so puts the animals who already depend on us in danger.
I started Gunner’s Mission because of what Gunner meant to my daughter.
I will not allow rescue to cost her Chance, too.
That was the line for me.
Not because I stopped caring.
Because I’m her mom first.
I can accept the emotional difficulty of rescue. I can accept the sleepless nights, vet bills, cleaning, transportation, appointments, phone calls, applications, coordinating fosters, and trying desperately to find the right home for an animal.
What I cannot accept is continuing to put my children or the animals who already call our house home at risk.
My responsibility to help someone else’s animal cannot come before my responsibility to protect the animals and people already depending on me.
We’ve also experienced a significant decrease in the public support, volunteers, fosters, and hands-on help necessary to operate this type of rescue responsibly.
There is no resentment in saying that. It is simply reality.
Rescue takes a village, and one person cannot be the entire village.
But I want to make something especially clear:
This decision is not Gunner’s Mission turning its back on rescue.
Quite the opposite.
There are some absolutely incredible rescues and animal advocates throughout our area. Through this journey, I have met people who give more of their time, money, homes, sleep, and hearts to animals than most people will ever realize.
They are doing work that is exhausting, expensive, emotional, and often thankless.
Rescue is HARD.
Those organizations deserve support, and Gunner’s Mission wants to be part of that support system rather than duplicating services we are not currently equipped to provide safely.
If we can prevent an unwanted litter, that is one less litter a rescue may eventually be asked to take.
If we can help a family afford spay or neuter services, that may prevent more animals from entering an already overwhelmed system.
If we can help provide access to affordable vaccinations, we can help keep animals healthier and give families another resource to keep their pets safely at home.
And when there are opportunities for Gunner’s Mission to work alongside our local rescues, share resources, support their efforts, connect members of our community with the appropriate organization, or assist in ways that fall within our capabilities, we absolutely want to do that.
We are not competing with our local rescues.
We want to complement the incredible work they are already doing.
Sometimes the best way we can help rescue is by working further upstream so fewer animals need rescuing in the first place.
And I want to be very clear about something else:
‼️Gunner’s Mission is NOT closing.
We’re doing exactly what Don and I have been working toward for some time now.
We’re returning our focus to the mission we believe can make the greatest long-term difference in our community:
🐾 PREVENTION
Our primary focus will be helping make spay and neuter services accessible to families in our community.
We cannot rescue our way out of pet overpopulation. Every litter prevented means fewer animals entering an already overwhelmed shelter and rescue system.
💉 PROTECTION
We will continue working toward access to low-cost vaccinations and resources that help families keep their pets healthy, protected, and at home whenever possible.
❤️ PURPOSE
We will continue looking for ways Gunner’s Mission can serve our community responsibly and sustainably—including supporting and collaborating with the incredible rescues already doing this work.
And this next chapter isn’t simply an idea on paper.
It is already beginning.
We are incredibly grateful to share that Gunner’s Mission has secured fenced land, a parking area, and a building right here in Rains County, generously made available to our organization through the support of one of Rains County’s own, Judge Brent Hilliard.
From the beginning, Judge Hilliard and his incredible wife, Stacy, understood what Don and I were trying to build with Gunner’s Mission.
They believed in the three P’s:
Prevention. Protection. Purpose.
And when we needed someone willing to believe that prevention could make a real difference in this community, they stepped up when very few others could.
That is something our family and Gunner’s Mission will never forget, and in time, our community will never forget.
I also want to be completely transparent about where we are in this process.
🚧 The facility is NOT operational yet.
The building was never designed or intended to function as a veterinary clinic, and there is a significant amount of work ahead of us before we can safely and responsibly begin providing services there.
But we have something incredibly important now:
A place to start.
And our goal is a big one.
We want to turn this space into a LOCAL, low-cost spay and neuter and vaccination clinic for Rains County and our surrounding community.
Not forever away.
Not months out for an appointment.
Not only open one day a week.
It’s not another resource that requires families to take an entire day off work, find transportation, or spend their whole day just to access affordable basic veterinary care.
It’s here, in our own backyard, and located in Point.
Because if we’re serious about reducing the number of unwanted, abandoned, and surrendered animals, then we have to make prevention accessible to the people who are trying to do the responsible thing.
Right now, one of our greatest challenges is finding veterinarians willing to donate their time and expertise while we get this program off the ground.
As a young nonprofit, there are grants and funding opportunities we simply won’t qualify for until we have been established and operating long enough to meet their requirements. Until we reach that point, this is going to take people willing to believe in what we’re building and help us bridge that gap.
So when I say all help is welcome, I mean it.
🔘We need veterinarians willing to donate clinic days or hours.
🔘Veterinary technicians and experienced veterinary professionals willing to volunteer.
🔘Businesses willing to donate materials, equipment, labor, supplies, or services to help us transform a building that was never intended to be a clinic into one that can safely function as one.
🔘Community members willing to volunteer.
🔘Organizations willing to partner with us.
🔘Sponsors and donors willing to help us purchase the equipment and medical supplies necessary to open the doors.
🔘And people simply willing to share what we’re trying to build until this message reaches the right person who says:
“I can help with that.”
Because Gunner’s Mission was never supposed to belong to just Don and me.
If this works, it belongs to the CITIZENS OF RAINS COUNTY.
Judge Brent Hilliard and Stacy gave this mission something we desperately needed:
A place to turn an idea into something real.
Now we have to build it.
And instead of measuring our success by how many animals we can fit inside our home, someday I hope we can measure it by something entirely different:
How many litters did we prevent?
How many animals did we vaccinate?
How many families did we help keep their pets healthy and at home?
How many animals never needed rescue because our community intervened first?
THAT is what Prevention. Protection. Purpose. looks like.
And that is what we’re working toward building right here at home.
There may still be circumstances where we consider an owner surrender. Those situations will be very limited and evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Acceptance will depend on our available resources, the animal’s complete history and temperament, our ability to appropriately place or manage that animal, and—above everything else—whether doing so can happen without jeopardizing the safety and well-being of my family or my personal animals.
Saying “no” doesn’t mean we don’t care.
Setting boundaries doesn’t mean the mission failed.
Changing direction doesn’t mean we’re giving up.
It means we’ve learned.
I refuse to allow guilt, pressure, or someone else’s emergency to continually become an emergency inside my own home.
To everyone who has donated, shared a post, transported an animal, fostered, adopted, volunteered, provided veterinary care, sent supplies, offered advice, prayed for us, or simply encouraged us along the way:
THANK YOU.
You helped us save animals that otherwise may not have had a chance, and nothing about this transition takes away from that.
And to the rescues throughout our area continuing to answer those calls every single day: YOU have our COMPLETE respect, gratitude, and our support.
Gunner’s Mission may no longer routinely take those animals into our home, but we are still here beside you.
And now, I finally get to share one piece of news I have been holding onto. 🥰
Perhaps there could not be a more meaningful way to close this chapter of Gunner’s Mission than with our final traditional rescue adoption.
Rex Rains is HOME. ❤️🐾
And Rex didn’t just find a home.
He found the home I believe he was meant to have.
Over Fourth of July weekend, I became involved in the search for a family’s beloved young dog, Boomer, after he became frightened during a fireworks show and ran. I saw a video my friend, Jenn Thatcher, made and I immediately felt God tugging on my heart to pack my bag and go.
Boomer wasn’t just their pet.
He was one of their dream dogs.
I helped with the search with the talented owner at Home - Ridgeline Search & Recovery, holding onto the same hope everyone else was holding onto that somehow we were going to find him and bring him home.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the outcome any of us prayed for.
Boomer had been hit on the highway.
Instead of getting to witness the reunion we desperately wanted, I watched a wonderful young, faith-filled couple experience the kind of heartbreak anyone who has truly loved a dog understands.
And maybe because of everything our own family had already experienced with Gunner, their grief hit me differently.
I couldn’t give them Boomer back.
But during our conversations, I learned something.
They had always had two dream dogs.
One was Boomer.
The other was a German Shepherd.
And I just happened to have one.
REX!
I told them that night that Rex wasn’t going anywhere.
There was no pressure.
No timeline.
No expectation that another dog could somehow erase what had happened.
I promised them that Don and I would hold Rex for as long as they needed while they grieved Boomer and worked through everything that had happened… because grief doesn’t operate on an adoption schedule.
And Rex wasn’t meant to be a replacement for Boomer.
He was meant to be the beginning of something new whenever their hearts were ready.
While they took that time, Don and I started working with Rex differently.
We knew what had happened to Boomer, and we knew that sending another dog home with them without acknowledging the fears they now carried wouldn’t be enough.
So we worked on those fears with Rex.
We exposed him to loud sounds.
We carefully introduced him to fireworks and unexpected noises.
We walked him near roadways where vehicles passed quickly so cars, traffic, and the sounds associated with them weren’t completely foreign to him.
We wanted to do everything reasonably within our ability to give this family more than a dog.
We wanted to give them some of their confidence back.
We couldn’t promise them that nothing frightening would ever happen again. Nobody can.
But we could try to prepare Rex.
We could help him become confident around the very things that now understandably terrified the people waiting to love him.
We wanted Rex to become more than the dog they adopted after losing Boomer.
We wanted him to help rescue them from some of the fear Boomer’s loss left behind.
And somewhere during all of that…
Rex became ours, too.
Don and I fell in love with him.
Our family fell in love with him.
There was absolutely a part of me that wondered whether Rex would ever actually leave our house.
And when the message finally came that they were ready for him, letting him go hurt more than I expected.
But rescue was never supposed to be about keeping the dogs that were easiest to love.
It was supposed to be about getting them where they belonged.
And I genuinely cannot think of a better place for Rex to belong.
He is now with a beautiful young, faith-filled couple who experienced tremendous heartbreak and still found the courage to open their home and their hearts again.
They didn’t replace Boomer.
You don’t replace a dog like Boomer.
Instead, they honored the love they had for him by allowing that love to make room for another dog who needed them.
And Rex didn’t replace Boomer’s story.
He became the next chapter.
There is something almost poetic about Rex being Gunner’s Mission’s final traditional rescue adoption.
Gunner’s Mission itself began because of a dog who was deeply loved and lost.
And our final adoption went to a family whose world had just been shattered by losing a dog they deeply loved.
We couldn’t bring Gunner home.
We couldn’t bring Boomer home.
But somehow, through all of that heartbreak, we were able to help bring Rex home.
Maybe that’s what this chapter was supposed to accomplish.
Rex will officially be Gunner’s Mission’s final traditional rescue adoption.
And I can’t imagine a better ending.
We don’t close this chapter with another intake.
We don’t close it with another emergency.
We close it knowing that a German Shepherd who needed a family found a family who needed a little hope.
We close it with Rex being HOME. ❤️
Gunner’s Mission was born from heartbreak and the desire to turn something painful into something meaningful.
That purpose hasn’t changed.
The way we accomplish it has.
Don and I believe the greatest impact we can make now isn’t by asking:
“How many animals can we take in?”
It’s by asking:
“How many animals can we prevent from ever needing rescue in the first place?”
So this isn’t goodbye to Gunner’s Mission.
It’s goodbye to one chapter of it.
And maybe it’s fitting that an organization created because of one deeply loved dog we couldn’t bring home gets to close its traditional rescue chapter by helping another family find the courage to bring a dog home again.
Now, we turn our attention toward making sure fewer families and fewer animals ever reach the point of needing rescue in the first place.
We have the nonprofit.
We have a community that needs the service.
We have people who believe in the mission.
And thanks to Judge Hilliard and Stacy, we have a place to start.
Now we need the village to help us build it.
Not closing.
Not quitting.
Evolving.
🐾 Prevention. Protection. Purpose.
— Brittany & Don Hughes
Founders, Gunner’s Mission
PS. Look how happy Rex is!!! He’s truly SMILING! He left us a completely different dog than who he was when he came, and I couldn’t love that enough!
