I have a newfound respect for rescue workers. Not that I didn’t have respect for rescue volunteers before, mind you. I think I just forgot how much dang work rescuing can be. I was part of a group in vet school that rescued dogs from shelters, put them in foster homes for 12 weeks, trained the dogs once a week, and at the end of the 12 weeks adopted them out. I was just one of the adoption coordinators and it was a ton of work, happily done but work nonetheless.
We had a dog at our clinic who was, for lack of better words, a hot mess. He is a sweet, purebred setter who looks like he got run over by a train. Bad skin, bad hips, bad teeth, you name it. His owner always brought him in to be looked at and then declined everything he needed. We would do all we could to help her, but at the end of the day the dog just didn’t get what he needed and deserved.
I had mentioned rescues a few times when the owner mentioned not wanting him anymore, since he is after all a purebred. Not that mutts deserve less- it’s just easier to place a dog in rescue when they are a purebred. She never called them, of course. So when he came in for a torn toenail last week and she yelled she was going to just euthanize him since the antibiotics were too expensive, our office manager convinced him to relinquish him to us.
And by us, she meant, “Dr V will figure it out.” Fortunately, we have a tech who was able to foster him for a bit, and somehow I had the daunting task of trying to find a home for a dog I really knew nothing about except the fact that he was a total mess.
The rescue I got in contact with was based in another time zone. Bless her heart, this woman agreed to help me find a foster home. The only problem is, the closest foster home was in Phoenix, and I was tasked with finding a way to get him there.
Lucky me!
So off I went to twitter for help, and was given a recommendation from Phetched to try and arrange a transport on the Dogster forum. There is a huge database there of people all over the country who are willing to donate their day to drive a dog from point a to point b. If you get enough people together all in a line, you can get a dog cross country. (I know my friend Karri has volunteered with the Drive for Life group on LiveJournal, which is similar.) Talk about angels on earth!
Now, in between getting the kids to bed and making dinner and cleaning up dog pee since Brody still needs hourly potty breaks or else, I needed to try and coordinate 5 or so people to relay race a dog to Arizona.
Or, as another friend suggested, try craigslist. I’m lazy, and this appealed to me. I went on the rideshare section, and somewhere between “Need a lift to LA” and “Can drive someone to Oregon this weekend” there appeared a new ad saying “Can anyone take a rescue dog to Phoenix?” An hour later, an ASU student heading back to school on Saturday offered to take our elderly hero with him.
So then I had to e-mail the rescue person in Virginia to contact the foster in Phoenix, and arrange for my tech to bring the dog to me to bring to the student who is driving him to Arizona. Got that? My head is swimming from too many things to keep track of.
I didn’t exactly volunteer for this, but I had a feeling when I first met him a year ago that I would be a part of trying to give him a better life. I’m just grateful that I have the opportunity to do this for this dog. He spent his life a yard on a choke collar by himself; five different strangers who didn’t know him, or each other, are coming together to erase that life and give him a new one. How fortunate am I to get to be a part of something good, to see the kindness out there and experience this kind of generosity given with nothing expected in return.
Now I need to just hope, pray and keep everything crossed that everything works according to plan. If you could all send good travel vibes in a southwesterly direction on Saturday, we would much appreciate it. 🙂
P.S. This is who awaits our pup on the other end:
I’ll be sending good vibes and finding out how I can volunteer to be a rescue driver. Dogster, here I come!
It’s called the Dogster railroad, I believe. They pull off some amazing transports!
Awwww, what a lucky Setter. I hope the transport runs smoothly. 🙂 I saw your post earlier about how to go about finding a transport. Most of DFL are through the eastern part of the nation. I can only think of a handful of transports that were ever on the west coast so I know we don’t have a huge membership over there. Make sure the rescue sends you an update. I love it when they do that and I can see how happy the dog is in their new home.
I had the opportunity once to be on the final leg of the transport. I got the coveted spot of handing off the dog to his new family. I don’t know who cried more but it was so beautiful. And I know he was spoiled rotten in his new life. I haven’t done a transport yet though that hasn’t made me cry – either for the situation the dog is coming from or the new happy life they are getting. And the chance of getting so many puppy kisses of gratitude and love? I never turn that down!!
Yay for you for helping the Setter out. He’ll be forever grateful to his angel in a lab coat.
The foster dad sent me a picture of his 4 dogs- 4 gorgeous setters. It’s very exciting.
Awww what a cute bunch!! That Setter won’t know what to do with himself having friends and finally getting healthy.
You are too, too good Dr. V.
I think the universe was telling me I owed it one for getting Brody. 🙂
I’m nothing special, I’m just the one who asked for people to help- everyone else is the real hero- the fosters, the drivers, they have all the work!
We do similar stuff with wildlife, I’ve always been impressed by people who go on our “wildlife road trips!”
Sounds like this guy has a great team working for him.
lol, Dr. V, you’re speaking my language now! Like the transport you set up, I’ve set up similar ones. What I liked about setting up the transports is that I actually did a lot of the driving. I saw a good part of America, and even saw a polar bear being transported. That was cool.
There’s a group on Yahoo called Truck-n-Paws that I worked with. The people are awesome in their willingness to help get the dogs home or to their new foster homes. Geeze, there is also Operation Roger and Rolling Rescue which are long haul truck drivers who transport the dogs. Almost 3 years ago I put a Chinese Crested on a transport from the Detroit Michigan area to Orlando Tampa Florida. The driver had a dog of his own and he was great with the dog.
And lastly, thank heavens for people who love their Setters!