Yo quiero una casa

By Matt Wood in Miscellaneous on Sep 30, 2005 3:51PM

Remember those 72 chihuahuas found in a Wheeling home last month? Well the Heartland Animal Shelter in in Northbrook that took them in is having trouble paying the bills. The shelter is spending $1500 a day to house the dogs, prepare their meals, and buy thousands of tiny plastic bags to pick up their poo. But the biggest cost for the shelter: their phone bill. An employee told NBC 5 that their phone and voicemail bill jumped to $1,200 after the deluge of calls from people interested in adopting the puppies.

The shelter has 3,000 names of people on its adoption list, so they are asking that everyone STOP FREAKING CALLING. Besides, they say, the Speedy Gonzalez imitations and "Yo quiero Taco Bell" jokes got old after about two days. Even though all the little ankle biters are assured a home, the shelter can't place them until they receive the proper vaccinations, get spayed or neutered, and have a clean bill of health. In the meantime, they want the public to front some cash to care for the dogs until they leave. The shelter can't take in any more dogs until the chihuahua herd leaves, so they have no other source of income.

Other dogs from the shelter report that it's time for the chihuahuas to leave, but for different reasons. "We had one of those little shits in here a couple months ago, and I almost ate him," said Scraps, a one-eyed asthmatic pit bull who is the shelter's longest running resident. "Can you imagine 72 of those things in here all day long? Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! It's enough to make me bite one of the employees again so they'll finally put me down."