Acorn

Acorn was “rescued” by Humane Society of the Dunes in December 2023. He was originally at IACS Shelter Rescue Team (formerly called IACS Rescue) and Indianapolis Animal Care Services (IACS) before HSotD pulled him. The founder of the rescue is Jane Hullsiek and the rescue is based out of Chesterton in Northwest Indiana (NWI). Acorn was the second to last animal pulled from IACS by Humane Society of the Dunes before IACS stopped allowing this rescue to take anymore animals.

Acorn was “rescue only” at the Indy shelter because he needed surgery for entropion in his left eye, and had some skin issues. On December 29, 2023, a few weeks after he was taken from the Indy shelter, someone reached out to Humane Society of the Dunes by private message and asked for an update on Acorn. Jane responded and said he was doing well and his cone was off and stitches would come out next week. She provided a photo where stitches are visible around Acorn’s eye.

In December of 2023, an IACS volunteer brought up concerns about Humane Society of the Dunes at an IACS advisory board meeting, and blasted the rescue on social media as well, tagging their Facebook page in the posts. It’s a longer story than we are able to share in this post right now, but ultimately Humane Society of the Dunes was no longer allowed to pull any more IACS animals. After the IACS advisory board meeting and the social media call-out, they changed their page name from Humane Society of the Dunes to “Humane Society of the Dune” (no S), blocked anyone critical of them on social media, restricted comments to followers of 24+ hours, disabled messaging their page, and deleted any recent critical comments on their posts. In December 2023 through February 2024, a lot of attention was focused on Humane Society of the Dunes. This is the period during which Acorn was rescued, had his surgery, and claimed to be adopted.

After years of posting at most ~0-5 times per year on their Facebook page, in February 2024 Humane Society of the Dunes posted a flurry of unusual “updates” about mostly IACS animals they’d pulled. They posted a photo of Acorn stating, “Acorn doing well after his Entropion surgery”. In this photo, there is redness around the eye and stitches are visible. Unless he did not have the stitches removed the first week of January as Jane had stated he would, it was not a current photo.

A couple of weeks later, someone commented on their HSotD Acorn post asking about his eye. Jane responded that his eye was better. They inquired about how he did with dogs and cats, and Jane stated Acorn did not get along with them. They asked about adopting him, and she stated he had already been adopted and stated he was a handful and needed training.

We want to commend Humane Society of the Dunes for finding a home for a pitbull that needed to be an only pet, had skin issues, and apparently had behavioral challenges, so quickly after rescuing him, with no animals posted for adoption on their Facebook page or website, and without the use of Petfinder or other pet adoption sites. Add in their super convoluted and restrictive adoption procedure on their website, and it’s extra impressive. Not many rescues could do what they did.

We are offering $100 for proof of Acorn’s whereabouts today. He’d be 2 years old now. She said he got adopted. We’d love to speak to Acorn’s adopter and will pay for the privilege.