Minnesota woman brings stray dogs from India

ST. CLOUD – Heather Bruhn-Worm had a hard time returning to Minnesota when her heart was in India with the stray puppies that adopted her.

The Minnesota woman brought the six dogs back to the United States in February to give them a better life. She arranged to have three of them flown to the Tri-County Humane Society. The rest were delivered to a Twin Cities shelter.

"I volunteer for several animal rescue organizations, and so while I was there doing my IT job, there's just an overabundance of stray, street dogs in India," she said.

The information technologist for van Wagenen Financial Services has traveled to India twice for the Eden Prairie-based company.

"We just outsourced our data entry department to India back in June of last year, so I've been establishing our office over in India and training the workforce," she said.

She befriended a dog and her eight puppies living in a drainage culvert next to her office building during her first stay in India in September. She had them flown to the United States, too, for about $5,000.

"I began feeding this mother dog and her puppies, and then when it became time to leave, I just knew that I had gotten them used to people and had now gotten them used to food, and there was just no way that I could leave them there to possibly die," she said of her first rescue.

"I'm a lover of animals and an animal rescuer at heart," said Bruhn-Worm, a 40-year-old Minnetonka resident who plans to continue rescuing more animals from dire situations.

"Through a whole bunch of long hours and networking through all my animal rescue friends, we finally collected the funds and arranged for veterinary care and their flights," she said.

Bruhn-Worm has arranged the transportation and rescue of 21 dogs in all from India, including the orphaned and unrelated puppies at the Tri-County Humane Society.

"I was actually in a town that was smack dab in the center of the country where there was no readily accessible air transportation for live animals, so there was a bunch of taxicabs that I actually had to hire for the pups," she said.

The medium-size puppies were up for adoption for $300 each at the Tri-County Humane Society, and by Feb. 21 two of them already had deposits put on them by potential adopters.

Resources are less of a problem in Minnesota. Bruhn-Worm's aunt, Karen Good, is the founder of Red Lake Rosie's Rescue on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, and she helped find places for the puppies. Good has dealt previously with Vicki Davis, executive director of the Tri-County Humane Society.