• • •
When we arrive in Baytown, Kathy and Tilani are there with Willis, the other dogs leaving today, and Willis’s lamb chop toy, his favorite. Willis is exactly as advertised: despite all the commotion, the big truck half-filled with barking dogs, and the new people, he’s a happy little warrior who seems to enjoy every minute. As I would learn over the next three days on transport, that mood almost never changes. Invariably, some of the dogs are quiet and withdrawn, some rambunctious and some just calm, but every time I passed Willis’s kennel during the trip, he would show his excitement by marching in place, like a little drummer boy. He should have been wearing a name tag with a happy face that said, “Hello, my name is Willis! What’s yours?” because he seemed like he wanted to befriend everyone he met. There was no question Willis would be worthy of his new family, and given how thorough Kathy is, I was sure the Gambuttis would be worthy of him.
• • •
Willis was by all accounts such a special little guy that I wanted to know how the Gambuttis found him and why they wanted to adopt him, so I called them to learn more. Phil Gambutti is semiretired; Mary Ellen still has right-side paralysis from a stroke she suffered six years ago, which forced her to give up her work as a professional gardener and garden designer. The Gambuttis have had several dogs and cats over the years, including some who came to them with multiple health problems.
“We’re very comfortable with dogs and have a lot of experience with dogs with special needs,” Mary Ellen told me when we spoke. “It’s been about a year since our two cats died a short time apart, and I miss having a companion animal.”
On the recommendation of a friend, the Gambuttis went to Kathy’s website. Because of Mary Ellen’s disability, the Gambuttis needed a small dog, one Mary Ellen could handle. A number of people in the fifty-five and over community where they live have bichons. “Willis just spoke to us,” said Mary Ellen. “He was just so cute.”
Kathy spoke to the Gambuttis’ veterinarian and their references, including some who had previously been Houston Shaggy Dog Rescue adopters. After Kathy approved their application, the Gambuttis and Tilani spoke often by phone and exchanged emails.
“She’s done a super job prepping me,” Mary Ellen said. “About his needs, his meds, his personality. For example, we know he loves cream cheese, so she told us to give him his prednisone [a steroid he takes for his cataracts] with some cream cheese.”
As it is for most adopters, the wait can be excruciating. Mary Ellen and Phil could hardly wait for the day when Greg’s truck rolled into Allentown, Pennsylvania, with Willis. And Willis? He seemed excited from the moment I met him in Baytown. He was doing his little marching in place and almost seemed to be saying, “I like that truck! Let’s go!”
• • •
By about 4:00 p.m., eleven of the twelve dogs boarding in Baytown are settled into their kennels in the trailer. But there’s one dog with the wrong paperwork. He comes from a rescue organization that’s using Greg for the first time. We wait for the next forty minutes while the woman who brought the dog to the truck tries to get someone—it appears to be her boyfriend from hearing her half of the conversation—to take pictures of the correct paperwork with his iPhone and email the images to Greg. He’s supposed to have the hard copies, but Greg agrees to take the dog if he has electronic copies with hard copies to follow.
During the wait, I cuddle with Salyna, who seems noticeably less nervous than she was a few hours ago. I take her for a walk around the parking lot as several passersby stop to admire the beautiful little puppy, and I chat with Tom English. Tom isn’t sending any dogs north with Greg this time, but he’s come so we can meet face-to-face. I’m planning to come back in a few weeks and spend several days with him and Kathy Wetmore and observe their work up close.
Our wait is to no avail. Eventually, Greg decides we can’t delay any longer; they’ll have to send the dog with the missing paperwork on the next trip. The rescue volunteer who brought him understands, but there’s something sad about seeing a dog so close to starting his journey home get back in the car he came in. But Greg’s doing the right thing. He just can’t risk taking him without the legally required documentation. If we didn’t have such a full load, Greg might be more aggravated than he is because he doesn’t charge if the dog doesn’t ride. It does, however, mean we’ll get into Lafayette an hour later than planned, which means one less hour of sleep before waking at the break of dawn to pick up dogs there.
• • •
It’s a little past five o’clock and we’re back on Interstate 10 for the four-hour drive to Lafayette, and Salyna, even calmer now, is back in the trailer in one of the kennels. Surveying the cab, I see an extraordinary assortment of food for us has appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Boxes and bags from Whole Foods bulge with goodies quite unlike the usual trucker’s fare: artichoke, feta, and lemon fritters; fresh fruit; an assortment of cookies and muffins; and crab cakes, among other items. Greg grins when he sees me eyeing this impromptu buffet and tells me Kathy loads them up every trip. She fills a large cooler with food, Greg drops it off empty the next trip, and she delivers another. It’s more than a cut above what we’ve been eating the past two days. Kathy’s generosity toward Greg—remember, she rescued him from bankruptcy by keeping him on the road when his truck needed a $7,000 repair—is deeply appreciated. Greg would drive to the end of the earth for Kathy and her dogs.
By the time we get back in the cab in Baytown, Greg, Tommy, and I have worked up a good sweat. The weather is hot, in the mid-eighties, though not as hot as it’s going to be as the southern summer gets into high gear.
“If it’s really hot, I may check the dogs every half hour,” Greg tells me as we rumble down the interstate. “It can be over a hundred degrees with 100 percent humidity outside, and I’ll be running all the generators to max out the AC.” The hot weather is harder on Greg and Tommy than the dogs. These are southern dogs, used to living in the heat, and the trailer stays nice and cool. But getting dozens of dogs on and off the truck for a walk is a lot of physical labor for two men, especially in brutal heat.
About halfway to Lafayette, in the Cajun country of southwestern Louisiana, we stop at a service station with a large, grassy field nearby. We have about fifty dogs on board and it’s time for each to get a short walk. There’s no fixed time interval for walks; it depends on many factors: weather, traffic, and time of day. If he were stopping every few hours to walk eighty dogs, the trip north might take eight days or even more. Instead, the goal is to make the trip as short as possible to minimize the time the dogs spend in the kennels while making sure they get occasional breaks. Throughout the journey, the dogs get snacks and water, and their kennels are cleaned as needed.
It’s still hot and humid, even in the early evening, but Greg and I each take the dogs, one at a time, for a walk while Tommy changes paper in the kennels and makes sure each has water. At some stops like this, curious passersby will come over to find out what’s going on, but not this time. We’re in a pretty isolated spot away from the gas pumps.
As we do the walks, I’m once again reminded of how physical this work is, lifting dogs out of kennels, securing the leashes and sometimes being towed along by a large dog very happy to be free of its kennel, so he or she can poop and pee freely.
Some dogs bound down the stairs of the truck; some have to be handed down into Greg’s or my waiting arms. One dog, Zack, a cur, seems petrified as he climbs into my arms when Tommy hands him down to me. Jenna, a black Lab, just rolls over, wanting a belly rub. It’s impossible not to get peed on or to get poop smeared on your shirt and shorts when you’re handling so many dogs that have spent hours in kennels. Mix in the sweat from walking dozens of dogs in the Louisiana heat with no shower for two days (and none to come for another two), and you have a recipe for an undeniably pungent yet oddly sweet smell. And yet, just as I am wondering how I’m going to go another two days without a shower, Greg ambles by with one of the dogs and
says in all seriousness, “I pity people with real jobs.”
Usually, of course, it’s just Greg and Tommy getting all this done until they reach Birmingham, where the Angels arrive to help.
Once every dog has been walked and every kennel tended to, a process that takes about an hour and a half, we’re back on the road. So far, except for the slight delays, everything is going smoothly.
But by the time we pull into Lafayette around 10:00 p.m., the hour’s delay in Baytown has repercussions. A heavy downpour has caused the truck stop parking lot where Greg usually spends the night to be inundated. Since space is first-come, first-served, the few usable spaces are already taken. We have to double back toward Texas on Interstate 10 again; the nearest alternative is behind us and there’s no guarantee there will be space there either. Greg’s frustrated. Every hour of sleep matters, especially at this point because once we leave Lafayette tomorrow morning, the goal is for Greg and Tommy to switch off and drive straight through to Allentown, save for a couple of hours in Birmingham, where the Angels will help walk the dogs, a truck stop shower in southwestern Virginia, and the usual fuel, food, and bathroom stops, for both dogs and humans. If Greg and Tommy can’t both grab enough sleep tonight, it could mean both are too tired to allow them to drive through the night tomorrow, even if they catnap during the day. They’ll get to Gotcha Day by hook or by crook because the families are depending on them, but it could mean an even harder push for both men.
After backtracking about ten miles down Interstate 10 we finally find a spot. Greg and I head to the trailer as Tommy climbs into his berth in the cab. As usual, our appearance in the trailer sets off a ruckus among the dogs. Once again, it doesn’t faze Greg a bit. Within thirty seconds of his head hitting the pillow, he is sound asleep, while I’m still unpacking my sleeping bag and doing my best with paper towels and a spray cleaner to make the floor where I’m going to sleep marginally acceptable given my high standards for cleanliness. It’s been a long day since we boarded the first dogs in Alexandria and though I haven’t been the one doing the driving, I could use some sleep.
• • •
Three hours later I’m still staring at the ceiling. It only took about half an hour after Greg fell asleep for all the dogs to settle down—all, that is, except one. With my legs wrapped like a mummy’s in my sleeping bag and extended into the narrow space between the kennels, my nose about six inches from the snoozing yellow Lab named Tennessee, I listen as one little dog barks a high pitched yap hour after hour.
The dog doesn’t sound particularly distressed, just eager for someone to play with. This is our first night with dogs in the trailer and I’m completely unsure what to do. If I weren’t here, Greg would be sleeping regardless and the night would pass with or without the continued barking. But I desperately want to fall asleep, and unlike Greg, I can’t sleep through the noise. Yet if I move to try and calm him, or her, I may rouse some of the other dogs, and they in turn could rouse still more, and then all hell might break out and, God forbid, wake Greg from a precious sleep. Even if I tiptoe over to the kennel, managing not to disturb any other dogs, unstrap the kennel from the wall, and bring him near me, will he calm down or just be barking even closer to my ear? And if I do, will Greg wake in the morning and be angry that I took it upon myself to move the kennel?
I finally decide the noisy status quo is intolerable and move as stealthily as possible to the kennel where the ruckus is coming from. It sounds like the bark of a small dog, which means he or she is likely on the top row where the smaller kennels sit. I manage not to disturb the other dogs, except for a whimper or two. And then I find the culprit who’s keeping me awake. It’s Willis, Mr. Happy himself! I open the kennel door to pet him, and he goes into his little-drummer-boy happy dance but surprisingly makes no effort, as many will when you open their kennel doors, to push his way out. When I think I have him settled, I close the kennel door and move as quietly as I can back toward my sleeping bag. Then, as soon as I slither back into the bag, he starts up again. Willis and I do this little pas de deux three or four times before I lift him from his kennel and hold him in the crook of my left arm. With my right, I reach into his kennel and realize the newspaper is wet, probably from spilling his water during his excited little dance but perhaps from more natural causes. With Willis still under my left arm, I gather up the newspapers and quietly walk to the back of the trailer, where there’s a trash can and fresh newspaper. After re-papering his kennel, I put him back in and he settles down nicely at last.
For a couple of hours, all is quiet on the western front and I doze lightly and dream of clean sheets and fluffy pillows. Then, without warning, T-Bone, the fifty-pound fox hound–pointer mix, goes on a barking jag three feet from my head. How, I wonder, does Greg sleep through all this?
I know in part he’s used to it and partly it’s the sheer exhaustion of the work. I also know, from the time I rode with Greg for the Parade piece, that there are times in the trailer when it’s eerily quiet—every dog asleep—and the only sound the hum of the generators.
But right now T-Bone is holding nothing back. I make my way over to his kennel on my knees and, with my fingers stretched through the kennel door, scratch him under his chin, which immediately calms him. But every time I withdraw and try to get back to my sleeping bag—which is not aptly named for a night like tonight—he starts howling again. Remarkably, even the dog in the next kennel, a yellow Lab named Baby Bella, sleeps soundly. But T-Bone just wants more, and for the next two hours, until about five thirty, I stroke his face and neck until he falls asleep at last. Unfortunately for me, we need to leave the truck stop in an hour so we can arrive at Lafayette Animal Aid where people and dogs are waiting on us. Fortunately for everyone, I’m not driving.
6
HOUSTON, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM
WHEN I SEE TADPOLE FOR THE FIRST TIME, he’s sitting on a white plastic lawn chair on the front stoop of a one-story brick house in Houston’s impoverished Fifth Ward. A tiny dachshund mix puppy about eight weeks old, Tadpole looks like a large but very cute rat because mange has denuded most of his body. A few stray hairs stick out from his head behind oversized ears. He’s completely docile and doesn’t move, except for a slight turn of his head as two strangers approach.
It’s been several weeks since my trip with Greg from Ohio to New England ended (a trip we’ll rejoin in Chapter 9), and I’ve returned to Texas, as I had to Louisiana, to learn more about Kathy Wetmore, Tom English, and others here who rescue the dogs who ride to their forever homes on Greg’s truck from Baytown. I was especially eager to spend time in urban Houston and its surroundings and see its staggering dog overpopulation problem for myself; I had been under the misimpression when I first started learning about rescue that it was primarily a rural problem. Houston proves that’s not the case.
• • •
Kelle Davis and Alicia McCarty are part of small grassroots group of volunteers that comprise Forgotten Dogs of the Fifth Ward Project, a so-called ”street” street rescue devoted to improving the lives of the stray and neglected dogs in one of Houston’s most destitute and dangerous neighborhoods. The Fifth Ward is ground zero for Houston’s 1.2 million strays that roam rubbish-strewn streets riddled with drugs and violent crime.
For the next few hours, I’ll be riding along with Kelle and Alicia in Alicia’s SUV as they take to the streets of the Fifth Ward. Two teams from the Project patrol different parts of the neighborhood twice a week.
There are strays everywhere. When Kathy Wetmore of Houston Shaggy Dog Rescue brings me to meet Kelle and Alicia at the CVS just off the freeway, a thin, mangy female pit bull, nipples elongated from nursing a new litter, ears infested with mites, wanders the parking lot, licking at food scraps, while people come and go as if it were a perfectly ordinary sight. In the Fifth Ward, it is.
When Kelle and Alicia arrive they immediately pull a bag of dry food from the back of the car and spread some on the walkway just outside the drugstore entrance.
The mama pit bull is calm but wary, and when she’s had her fill, she walks off toward a busy four-lane road. We hold our breath as she trots right into the roadway, cars speeding by or slowing suddenly to avoid her, and then ambles off into a field across the way.
Kelle and Alicia know these streets and they know many of the dogs, for they have seen them before. Dog by dog, person by person, street by street, they are trying to make life just a little better. They drop off free dog food for people who can’t afford it. Once they earn their trust, they’ll urge spaying and neutering and offer information about how to get it done free or at very low cost. For those dogs living on the streets, they spread enough food on corners to last a couple of days. For those they can approach, they may administer vaccines to help stave off infectious disease or give oral medications to treat fleas or mange. One tiny step at a time, they are trying to educate people and alleviate misery for the dogs.
• • •
It was another dog we saw, also a dachshund mix, that led us to Tadpole. We spotted him running on the median strip of a busy road by the railroad tracks. Alicia had pulled the car over, concerned the dog was about to become roadkill. As she tried to coax the dog to her, a man wandered by and told us the dog lived just down the street. As it took off, we followed in the car until it entered the yard where Tadpole was sitting quietly in the white plastic chair. Alicia approached the house and rang the bell several times. No one answered. Kelle, a licensed vocational nurse, and Alicia, a nursing student, conferred. Tadpole wasn’t long for this world. He was undernourished and his advanced mange reflected complete neglect. And there was no way of knowing if Tadpole belonged to the people in this house, or had just wandered there. Left untreated, the mange would likely lead to a slow, painful death from a secondary infection.
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