Joseph Pimentel, 67, spends every weekend quite literally in the dog house.
On Saturday mornings, he awakes to set up for the Florida Rottweiler Rescue Ranch’s discount pet supply sale. Proceeds help fund the nonprofit shelter, which Pimentel moved from Hillsborough County into his ranch property on County Road 225 in Gainesville in 2022.
Pimentel’s shelter focuses on finding families for abandoned and neglected “power breeds” – that is, dogs facing higher rates of neglect, abandonment and euthanasia, often due to the stigma of being violent animals. Pet euthanasia in the U.S. last year reached its highest annual figure since 2020, with more than 3,000 cases in Florida alone, according to according to Axios.
Stigma around power breeds isn’t the only obstacle facing Pimentel. Alachua County contends the roofing over the shelter’s new agility course is too close to his property line.
Scott Krajewski, the county’s code administration director, said Pimentel has until a Nov. 7 hearing to either remove the roofing or move the course further from the property line. If Pimentel does not comply or show progress by the hearing, he could be fined, Krajewski said.
Pimentel spoke with WUFT News about his mission to find the dogs at his shelter new homes.
This Q&A is edited for clarity.
Q: How did you get into rescuing dogs?
A: In 1997, I adopted two Rottweilers from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I fell in love with the breed. I grew up in Massachusetts and moved to Florida in 2009. I was doing all the Home Depot remodeling across the state of Florida before retiring in 2012 because of a medical injury. Then I needed something to do. I said, “I’ll open a small rescue.” Within the first week we had 16 dogs. Since then, it’s blown up out of proportion.
Q: Tell us more about working with the community and donating pet food.
A: We probably give out 300,000 pounds of pet food a year. We’re 100% nonprofit. Every penny that we make goes back into the rescue. We’ve homed over 1,800 dogs. We have maybe about 90 dogs here right now. We’ve seen so many people dumping their animals. It’s because of today’s economy. We’re getting all these donations. We can cut the price in half, and that helps people keep their animals. It’s worked out great so far. We get the donations from Dollar General. Their ripped open bags – we tape them. If it’s a $6 bag of food at the store, give us a $3 donation. If they want 30 bags, they can have 30 bags at $3 each.
Q: What sets your rescue apart from others besides the kind of dogs you focus on?
A: We have 26 here that are “life” dogs. They all have bite histories from two, three to nine bites. We won’t euthanize. I’m not going to stick a dog in a house I know nothing about. I have to know its personality. We work with them daily to figure out these little idiosyncrasies.
Q: Are you able to save every dog that comes your way?
A: Some we can rehabilitate, some we can’t. There’s no crystal ball in this, just trials and tribulations. Will I home any of them? No. But I will let them live out their life. That’s why we kind of expanded. We never wanted this many dogs.
Q: What about the negative view many people have of power breeds?
A: I’m a firm believer that no dog needs to be euthanized. They’re not born vicious. They’re that way because of bad owners. It takes previous owners that understand the breed to work with them. Not all the dogs we have here are aggressive. Some are super friendly, but they need to decompress once they get here. It’s stuff like that we work with, trying to show them that every human’s not going to hurt them.
