“Bull Terrier Rescue”
Bull Terrier Rescue Mission “the mission” started as a personal commitment to service what is now, The Bull Terrier Rescue Mission, Inc. a 501(c)3 charity (BTR Mission/BTRM). Enabling rescues to cast a much wider net, the internet has amplified people’s ability to be agents of change and it’s been a boon for our mission.
BTRM is an organization of like-minded volunteers committed to protecting the health and welfare of Bull Terriers in need of homes. A community comprised solely of volunteers extract these dogs from their unfortunate circumstances, and give them the care and comfort they deserve.
Our Mission will ensure that their medical needs are addressed, given time to decompress while they’re properly evaluated. We will rehabilitate when necessary, and work towards finding them their final and perfect homes. We commit to advocate and protect these wayward souls for the duration of their life even following up after they’ve been adopted.
The BTRM, works with private individuals, rescue professionals, animal shelters, pet owners, ethical Bull Terrier breeders and veterinarians throughout the United States, to provide these services. Its board members have over 20 combined years and 200 separate cases of rescue experience. If BTRM is unable to provide direct support, cases will be referred to organizations or individuals that can. As with most successful rescues, the strength of this Mission, is in its network and the relationships it has cultivated.
Every Life Matters
The Bull Terrier Rescue Mission does not discriminate due to the age or health of its Bull Terriers. Professional veterinary care is provided – including spay/neuter – prior to matching each Bull Terrier with the right adoptive home. No animal is euthanized for need of medical care. That option only exists if the animal displays extreme threatening behavior towards humans, if their health is unrecoverable, or the outlook is dire for their quality of life.
How can we help you?
Meet the team
Arné Balassanian
Executive Director & Founder
I found myself avidly following the lives of other bull terriers on social media, seven years after getting my first one. He was a beautiful and unique little red fellow, with an odd sort of a self-serving attitude. I was so enthralled with having him as a part of my life, I was immediately drawn to the lives of others, on the Internet.
It wasn’t long after sharing stories about him and reading about others around the world, that I discovered there was a code of ethics around owning pets. If you really loved these animals, you didn’t want to be a part of causing any of them tangible pain. You didn’t want to patronize people who produced them, solely for the purpose of making money. Because these people wouldn’t take responsibility for the dogs they bred when they were abandoned or given to shelter or even worse.
That idea – along with the person I’d become – nudged me into a direction. I started to care about these ethereal dogs I’d never met before. I began contributing my time, money and efforts towards benefiting the health and welfare of unwanted Bull Terriers (and other dogs and pets). If there was a way for me to help, weather by sharing information, or donating cash, or visiting a shelter or a private home to evaluate a dog or a family that wanted a dog or transporting an animal, I would do it.
Then around 5 years ago someone began to take notice. Again, and again, I would present this stalwart protector of the breed with dogs that needed saving. I would go to shelters for her, share information, locate prospective homes for the Bull Terriers she was saving with the rescue she built from the ground up. I’m probably thicker in head than I’d like to think, but eventually I started to notice that she kept telling me the same thing. She told me that I needed to start vetting the prospective homes for all these dogs I was pulling out of the ether. I needed to go look at this dog I’d located with my own eyes. I needed to set up this home checkup, for “the perfect adopter” I had found. Until finally one day I realized she was asking me to do more. To join in her efforts and help do the work of rescuing Bull Terriers as more than a passing hobby or avid obsession. That I should join on the administrative end and get my hands dirty with the actual work of volunteer based foster rescue.
Finally, I listened.
Arné Balassanian has been an active rescue volunteer since 2016. He has evaluated dog’s for intake in NYC at Shelters and Animal Care Centers and from private individuals. He has also been active with home evaluations, transportation and fundraising. In 2018 he began working the administrative end as a coordinator, focusing on marketing for applicants, vetting said applicants for viability as fosters or adopters. He’s a member of the Bull Terrier Club of America and has assisted with many intakes and placements some of which can be seen here.
Kimberly Hoepfel
Co-Founder & Vice President
After falling in love with this Unique Breed over thirty years ago, having had countless fosters in our home, along with our eight rescued Bully’s that we adopted, I am still mesmerized and enthralled as ever with these amazing animals!
After searching for our first Bull Terrier all too long ago is when I learned of the dark side of this breed, meaning the amount of neglected, homeless, and abused souls hidden away and lost in society. That is what pointed me to where I am today, for the welfare and salvation of these castaways. There is nothing that makes me happier than saving the lives of this breed and help provide them that second chance of a wonderful and loving life!
Unfortunately, many potential owners don’t do the research before owning a Bull Terrier. This Breed definitely is not for everyone and unfortunately there are breeders out there strictly for the money aspect. This is where the problem starts. Next are the uneducated owners that acquire the dogs and soon find out their quirkiness and inability to properly care for them. Last is when these poor animals are sent to a shelter, dumped out on the street, or worse. Why is it always the animal that has to pay the price for the Human that put them in this situation? Having spent many years in all facets of rescue I have always understood because of this that not all will be (or can be) saved but I will continue to do everything in my ability to help all that I can. Being a part of this Rescue Society of Care Givers is what gives me great satisfaction and purpose in life.
Kimberly Hoepfel began volunteering for rescue in 2008, doing transports, home checks, evaluating cases for intake, as well as fostering Bull Terriers. In 2014, she began her journey as a coordinator on the administrative end of rescue where she worked on intakes, placements, applicant evaluations, marketing and fundraising. The amount of cases she’s been directly involved in are too many to count, though during her time as an administrator and eventual board member of a rescue, that rescue took in over 200 cases.
Anja Georgiou
Secretary of the Board, Placement Coordinator
Anja with Mimi and Fridolin aka Grandpa
When I was growing up, I thought I was a cat person. Then in 2010 I adopted my first Bull Terrier from a German shelter. Fridolin is now over 17 years old and still kicking. I had gone there to get a small dog (maybe a Chihuahua?!) and ended up with a Bull Terrier not knowing anything about the breed. Speak about the dog chooses you not the other way around. After a week of eying him suspiciously and not knowing how to interpret his little quirks I somehow understood- this is my big love. I loved him and his antics so fiercely from that moment on that when a year later the shelter called and asked if I could take in another Bull Terrier, 5 months old and very sick, I didn’t even blink an eye and took Mimi in. To be honest I got lucky, both of them were super easy, therefore absolutely perfect for a first timer like me. I lost my girl after 10 years together in 2020 – every second worth the heartbreak of the loss.
These 2 unique and stubborn little babies changed my life forever. I started being more active on Facebook, following Bull Terriers and rescues worldwide, helped out with gifting items for fundraisers in the US but always wanted to do more. Help more. I knew mine were loved and taken care of, but I saw so many in need and felt so helpless.
Germany doesn’t have kill shelters, so I felt these dogs at least are in a safe place. But all over the world so many died every day and I wanted to be a part of something good and to help somehow, not knowing that a couple of years later my husband and I would be helping with talking to applicants, fostering dogs, transporting, evaluating dogs and doing home checks.. and it feels good!
Not only gifting items for a fundraiser but as an active part of a rescue dogs’ journey. Helping them heal, socialize, trust again – be their haven even if it is just for a short time.
We adopted 2 other Bull Terrier girls, Jada and Echo, because our old boy really missed his companion. Both girls are pure chaos but are also the cutest little girls in the world (together with Mimi, whose probably wreaking havoc over at the rainbow bridge, as I write this).
We’ve also had countless fosters, most of them Bull Terriers and each of them an awesome companion with their own little quirky personalities. We love them and miss them dearly when they go, but this helps us make space for a new one that needs a safe landing spot and we know they are going to awesome homes being the companion they were always supposed to be.
Everybody can help in little things to make the world a better place. I believe in that and see many good people who genuinely want to help, be it with a little donation, transport help, home checks, evaluations, fostering, adopting, fundraising…all those things are desperately needed, and we can count ourselves very lucky to have “the village” on board to help us help these precious babies.
Alysha Bokuniewicz
Co-Founder & Medical Liaison Coordinator
I really did not want a bull terrier. I had lost a dog, and my partner had insisted we get one. I wasn’t really ready, and I gave him every excuse in the book – I’m too busy, I can’t afford it, we’ll never find one in local rescue, and the most blasphemous of all – “They’re kind of ugly.”
Nugget’s arrival was kismet; I went to my local rescue, determined to prove we’d never find one, and there he was right at the top of the page as if he’d been waiting for us. Two days and one hundred dollars later, he was home, and when I tell you that Nugget was my dog, I mean he was mine. That boy was my absolute heart dog. I got seven years with him, and three of them on borrowed time. For everything he had in temperament and personality, he lacked in physical health.
Funny thing about my area is it actually has a rather large and reputable bull terrier community, so it didn’t take long to start talking to other people. Once someone knows you have a bull terrier, you start getting tagged in Facebook posts with more of them needing rescued.
That’s how I ended up with Peanut. A sweet, older lady who was in shelter after living her adult life in pretty not-ideal conditions, to put it mildly. I think she is the reason I went all in on the breed and where my foray into the world of rescue really started. Peanut and Nugget became a bonded pair, and she passed at the age of 14, just seven weeks after Nugs. Nowadays it’s me and my wild boy, Tugger, living our best lives, as my rescue work continues to grow.
I’m especially proud to be here, at BTRM, largely because of the value we place on meeting the medical needs of our dogs, by any means necessary. My role here is to evaluate and coordinate those needs, and I take pride in making sure that our potential adopters and fosters are as informed as possible on the health of the dogs in our program. We really work to empower adopters to be able to meet the medical and behavioral needs of these rescues through lifetime support. Our dogs, our fosters, our adopters – they’re family, and we always take care of family.
Morgan (Letzelter) Hooks
Co-Founder & Director, Behavior Czar
Morgan has enjoyed a lifetime around dogs, starting in 4-H in the 1990’s where she was introduced to obedience and conformation. From there she went on to compete in and teach agility.
Morgan has mentored under various trainer and judges, training and showing anything owners would throw at her. Her favorite dog sports are hunting and agility, in which she has titled a few dogs.
Morgan loves to take dogs into the ring with her, feeling that in the ring, handler and dog form a special bond. Thanks to Jessie, Morgan obtained her hunting license and they spent their first season together in the field in 2015.
Throughout the years, she’s assisted in whelping and raising more than fifteen litters of bull terrier and golden retriever puppies, attending seminars and working for noted author (When Pigs Fly) and Puppy Culture developer Jane Killion.
Morgan has worked at and volunteered at animal shelters and at Petco, specializing in behavior assessment and modification. With a strong belief in positive reinforcement, in 2019 she started Obedience and Beyond, a business focused on training and behavior modification, including service animals.
Morgan is a founder of Watershed Pines Golden Retrievers, a member of the Lake Audrey Hunting Retriever Club in New Jersey, the Greater Pittsburgh Golden Retriever Club, the Bull Terrier Club of America and a Board Member and Co-Founder of Bull Terrier Rescue.
Emily “Mikey DGAF” Dillon
Member at Large & Placement Coordinator
Ever since Emily could remember, she preferred the company of dogs to most people. Their simple and genuine nature when juxtaposed against the complexity of humans, had such a profound effect, that her entry into the field of animal welfare was inevitable.
Even now, she’s literally too busy playing with one of her dog’s to write this short bio.
But don’t be mistaken, she is a rock when it comes to cases. It doesn’t matter the dog, if she has an open spot, she will take it, and she will make it work.
Emily “Mikey DGAF” Dillon is currently what we call a “One of Nine”. If we as a rescue, know maybe nine people in the country that we’d trust with any dog, she is one of them.
We should probably get her a bigger house though or something.
