The family of Tia Torres: husband, children, four-legged animals, and Parolees!

Tia Torres is 63 and her life has been a fascinating and inspiring one. Starting from a tumultuous childhood to having animals as family members to adopting more animals and parolees and lost souls, her rescue center has done some amazing work over the years.

A look back at her humble beginnings followed by her magnificent life and work.

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Tia Torres and her tumultuous childhood

Tia Torres came from a broken home. She was born on 11 June 1960 and has American citizenship and Scottish and Irish ethnicity. Her family was middle-class and lived in Southern California. Tia’s parents divorced when she was small. Her father remarried. Later, her biological mother died and her stepmother raised her.

It was her stepmother who instilled the love for animals in her. According to her stepmom,

“if you have the loyalty of an animal companion, you don’t need much else.”

Tia Torres with Duke (Source: Pinterest)

They had horses, dogs and other animals at their house and both of them used to take care of them. Time was tough but they somehow pulled through. And at 17, Tia left home with her two Arabian horses, an Angora goat, and a dog. These made up her four-legged family. She struggled to find food for them and herself. Many days of that period, they were homeless and stayed in trailers and vans.

Villalobos Rescue Center

Later, Tia took up a job of truck driver in the Army. Subsequently, the City of Los Angeles gave her the work of a youth gang counselor. She helped many people with drug addiction and those doing petty crimes. And she was also working with parolees.

Subsequently, it so happened that she chanced upon a female Pit bull at a crime scene. The canine was the only survivor of a drug deal gone bad leading to double homicide. As the police officers were taking the Pit Bull to the shelter home, she escaped and ran towards the two daughters of Tia, Tania and Maria and tried to play with them. Tia was moved and adopted the Pit bull. She named her Tatanka and thus started Tia’s rescue of Pit Bulls.

Villalobos Rescue Center was only for wolf rescue initially but later it also included rescue of Pit Bulls. She tried to make people aware that animals are loving and harmless creatures. Her rescue also extended to parolees who found it difficult to get jobs after their jail term. And she also rescued other lost souls on the way. Her family extended further when she adopted two boys, Kanani and Keli’i/Moe. She took these Hawaiian boys under her wings.

Her fame rose and one of the Los Angeles magazine named her as the most important person of the city.

Tia and TV shows

Tia loved a quiet life. Hence, she rejected requests of several production houses for a TV show. But later, when funds started dwindling, she thought that her TV shows might help her to garner some money for her rescue home. She had other animals also now in her family: domestic cats, reptiles, rooster, bird and needed finance to feed them.

Her show, The Pit Bulls and Parolees commenced on Animal Planet in 2009. And it gained a lot of positive review and popularity. Later, she shifted South and started anew in Louisiana and Texas. This relocation was in January 2011 and now has further expanded as the largest rescuer for Pit Bulls and others.

Tia also wrote a book that published on 7 August 2018. Tia is married and her husband is AJ Jackson. They met in 1980s when she was looking out for a dog owner. Later, he served a jail sentence and upon return again met her in 2001. They started dating and wed. Tania is the daughter of her ex-husband whose name is not known. And Maria is her daughter with AJ.

Short bio on Tia Torres

Tia Torres is an American reality TV star. More bio…

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