Rescue Road
Page 22
But the first couple of weeks weren’t easy. We felt like prisoners in our own house and immediately had second thoughts. We had pee and poop to clean up. We were overwhelmed by both the advice books and by the responsibility of caring for two rescue dogs now. We lost sleep wondering if we’d done the right thing. (It should also be noted, we had disregarded the advice I’m about to offer in the Author’s Note about not being impulsive when deciding to adopt a dog. So do as I say, not as I do in this case!)
Within a week, however, Salyna-now-Salina was house-trained, with only a few minor mishaps thereafter. We found we were able to leave Albie and Salina at home for a few hours and return to an intact house. More quickly than we imagined, life returned to normal and Salina became, as Albie had before her, part of our family.
It was because we adopted Salina that on my return trip to Louisiana—to spend time walking the shelters, visiting Dumpster sites with Keri and Greta, and meeting up again with Greg—that I drove to Natchitoches to meet CJ Nash and his family and to see where Salina was born to CJ’s dog, Mia. Salina and her littermates were fortunate to have CJ as their protector. Countless litters like theirs are abandoned or brought to rural shelters where their lives are measured in hours.
About a month after we brought Salina home, I was walking her by the local garage where we get our cars repaired. Scotty, one of the mechanics, loves dogs and always enjoys seeing Albie. When he saw me with Salina, he came out to meet her. I told him she had recently come from Louisiana.
“That’s funny,” he said. “My brother just adopted a black Lab that came up from Louisiana too. Some guy brought him up in this truck, where people go with signs and meet their dogs. The dog’s name is Hunter, but I think his name was Seth. He changed it.”
Scotty’s brother, Dylan, lives about a mile from us. I was sure Hunter had to be the Seth, one of the S puppies, who traveled north with us. The timing of his arrival, the name, the description of the transport—it all fit. I texted Keri to see if Seth had gone to an adopter named Dylan in Dedham, Massachusetts.29 He had, and within an hour, Salina and I were back at the gas station with Dylan and Hunter. It was clear the puppies remembered one another. Dylan told me Hunter was never submissive with other dogs, yet he rolled onto his back and let Salina jump all over him without protest.
In time, with the help of Rae McManus, the woman CJ Nash called to help him save the puppies, and Keri, I had connected with five of the adopting families of Salina’s litter; one of them was the Remalys, the couple that organizes the Allentown Angels. They adopted Sam, now Beau, who made the trip with Keri and Greta in the van, but who became ill and needed to travel back to Louisiana before being put up for adoption.
Now, Salina is an integral part of our lives. She’s a composed and self-possessed young dog, wily, playful, and still as pretty as she was when she was just a little puppy. We love her. Just as importantly, Albie loves her too.
28.The family requested I use a pseudonym.
29.Hunter, it turned out, was one of the dogs Greg transferred to P.E.T.S. in Allentown since Dylan was picking him up in Massachusetts. That’s why we didn’t meet on Gotcha Day.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
IN THE COURSE OF WRITING THIS BOOK, I MADE THREE TRIPS WITH GREG MAHLE, including one complete trip from his Ohio home to the last drop-off point in Connecticut. To simplify the narrative, I took the liberty of presenting my travels with Greg as single trip, except where I explicitly note otherwise. There were also times when I spoke to people interviewed for this book several times, sometimes in person and sometimes by phone, but again, for clarity of presentation, I have at times presented those conversations as having occurred on one occasion. In no case has this poetic license compromised the accuracy or veracity of the narrative.
This book is the story of one transporter, Greg Mahle, and three rescue organizations that account for the vast majority of dogs he transports each year, just one small network of people working to save the lives of southern dogs.30
But the world of rescue is far larger than Greg and the organizations he works with. There are many other excellent rescue organizations and transporters out there. There are also many you should avoid. Those happy scenes when Greg pulls his truck into the parking lots on Gotcha Day are wonderful, but as Anne Lindsay, president of the Massachusetts Animal Coalition told me, “There aren’t always happy endings for rescue dogs.” Too often those unhappy endings result because people underestimated the time and effort required to make a successful life with a dog, or simply have little understanding of a dog’s world. Sometimes they’ve adopted through a rescue organization that doesn’t thoroughly evaluate their dogs to maximize the chances of a successful placement.
People fall in love with pictures of dogs online or at first sight at adoption events. But life for that adorable dog will become dull, frustrating, and perhaps even dangerous for the dog and people if you aren’t fully committed and don’t try to understand the world as your dog experiences it. Alexandra Horowitz’s book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know should be required reading for anyone adopting a rescue dog or buying a dog from a breeder. Her book is not a training manual, but it will almost certainly inform your relationship with your dog for the better. Above all, your dog needs and deserves your empathy.
As anyone who has truly loved a dog will tell you, there are countless moments of great tenderness, joy, and transcendent happiness. But as in any relationship, it’s not always butterflies and a joyous romp through fields of waving grain. It can be very hard work; it will try your patience repeatedly, and there are no guarantees with any dog.
Before you make the commitment, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. Do you have the time, and will you have the energy—now and twelve to fourteen years from now—to meet your dog’s needs for exercise, companionship, happiness, and healthy growth? Do you have the patience to let your dog be a dog? If you’re adopting a puppy, that adorable little bundle of fur you just want to cuddle is going to shred your favorite scarf and destroy your best pair of dress shoes. She’s going to poop on your handmade Persian rug. She’s going to grow up and become an adult dog, maybe a little less cuddly and adorable than she was as a puppy, just as babies become rebellious teenagers and young adults. If you adopt a younger dog—a year or two past puppyhood, such as Albie—even his personality will evolve over time. The docile, grateful stray who seems so eager to please the first year may become more assertive as he or she becomes more accustomed to being in your home and with your family. You need to understand that as with children, certain personality traits may be fixed, but others change over time. You need to go with the flow.
There are, to be sure, dogs who are too aggressive or who are unable to trust people for reasons not of their own making. There are legitimate reasons why people sometimes have to part ways with a dog. But far too often dogs are victims of unrealistic expectations.
Your job isn’t to train the dog to live like a person, but to train yourself to live with a dog. Just as with kids, you need to be in control and not let the inmates run the asylum, but the more you expect your dog to behave like a person, the more frustrated you will be and the more unhappy the dog will be. You may want to take a brisk walk when all your dog wants to do is stop every three feet and explore his fantastic and lavish world of smell. You may want to sleep in on a bitter February morning when every paved surface is covered in ice and snow, but your dog still needs to get out and do her business. And trust me, your dog has no interest in NFL Football or American Idol and doesn’t understand your elaborate oratory. It’s remarkable how many people get angry at their dogs because they haven’t grasped the fact that while dogs will learn to respond to certain commands, they do not have a command of the English language.
Having considered all of the demands and responsibilities having a dog will entail, if you decide to adopt a rescue dog, the first step you can take to make your own rescue journey successful is to work with a reputable rescue org
anization.
Such groups are serious about trying to ensure successful adoptions. Just as there are good doctors and bad; honest, reliable contractors and dishonest, unreliable ones; the same applies to the bewildering, fractious, and often contentious world of canine rescue. Some calling themselves “rescue” organizations are simply an individual or two out to make a few bucks, scooping up stray dogs—healthy or not—in, say, Tennessee, driving them north, and selling them on street corners. That’s not a rescue organization; it’s a disaster. And as I saw and heard often while writing this book, canine rescue work attracts its fair share of what many, even in rescue, call “crazies”—people who deeply believe they are saving dogs but who operate irresponsibly, often heedless of any standards. Their antics often tar the entire rescue community and make life more difficult for those who are working tirelessly to assure healthy, happy lives for hard-luck dogs.
If you were hiring a lawyer, looking for a doctor, or engaging a contractor, you’d ask for recommendations from people you trust. You should do the same when you decide to adopt a rescue dog. Ask around. Have people had a good experience with the rescue organization in question? Ask veterinarians too. Have they heard of the group you are thinking of adopting through? If so, what do they know? Can they recommend a group with a solid history and reputation?
Second, your rescue dog should be fully up-to-date on all vaccines and should be spayed or neutered. Once you know the age of the dog you are interested in adopting, ask a vet what vaccines the dog should already have had. Your dog may need additional vaccines upon arrival, but should be current at the time of transport or, if in a local foster home, at the time of adoption. Ask your rescue organization if that’s the case, and when in doubt, ask to see the medical records. No one can absolutely guarantee a dog’s health—they can contract illnesses during transport, or test heartworm negative but turn out to have the disease, but you can minimize the risks by asking questions and making sure the dog has been treated for any existing conditions and been vaccinated to prevent others.
A sign that you’re working with a reputable rescue is the home visit. Before Labs4rescue will allow you to adopt one of their dogs, for example, a volunteer will come to your home, meet your family, ask a series of questions, and evaluate the home environment. The volunteer may arrive with his or her own dog in tow to see how you relate to dogs. If you have other pets, some, such as Houston Shaggy Dog Rescue, will call your veterinarian to see if you are meeting all of the animal’s health needs. While you’re checking the dog out online, they’re checking you out. Yes, all rescues are interested in moving dogs into homes expeditiously because each one adopted out opens up an opportunity to save another life, but not at the risk of settling a dog into a home where the chances of success aren’t high. Their responsibility also extends indefinitely: if for any reason you need to surrender the dog, most reputable rescue organizations require in the adoption contract that you surrender the dog to them. They don’t want you passing the dog off to someone they haven’t vetted or, worse still, to a shelter where the dog may be euthanized.
While no one can guarantee a dog perfect in health and temperament, adopting a rescue dog needn’t be a pig in a poke either, and tens of thousands of people can attest to the wonderfulness of rescue dogs they’ve saved from near certain oblivion in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi or, in smaller numbers, states north of the Mason–Dixon Line. And when a rescue dog finds a loving forever home, it’s a happy ending and a new beginning for dog and family alike.
• • •
When I walk Albie and people ask about him—how old is he, is he a purebred Lab, where did he come from—I always say he’s a rescue from Louisiana and about four or five years old; we don’t know for sure. Often the next question is, “Is he a Katrina dog?” Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005 and Albie is, as of this writing, only five years old at most. He was born well after Katrina. It’s important to understand the overpopulation of southern dogs is not the result of a single event; it’s an ongoing, chronic problem and it’s been ongoing since well before Katrina.
One of the thoughts that plagued me while I was growing attached to Salina and starting to think about adopting her is that puppies are the most adoptable of all rescue dogs. Once they are in the safety of a rescue organization, they aren’t hard to place. Dogs like Albie, who was two or three years old when we adopted him, are also relatively easy to place. Special needs dogs such as Sadie, the yellow Lab with epilepsy, and senior dogs, those in the last half of their expected life-span, are harder to place: they will be more illness prone in their later years and people are reluctant, understandably, to give their hearts to a dog who may live only another few years. Yet there are many wonderful older dogs and dogs with special needs, and you see their profiles on Petfinder month after month after month. It takes a special person to commit to a senior dog or one with special needs. As Greg watched me grow increasingly infatuated with Salina, he reminded me of that and I took it seriously. I knew we would be doing an older dog a greater service than we would Salina by adopting her; she would have no trouble finding a forever home. But by the time we had reached New England, we were connected and I couldn’t bear to abruptly break that bond. She’d have moved on easily had we not adopted her. I’m not so sure I would have. As is probably clear by now, rescue is a matter of the heart, but use your head too!
30.A few months after my travels with Greg ended, I learned he was no longer transporting dogs for Lafayette Animal Aid. As in any human endeavor, there are politics in rescue too, and differences of opinion about how things should be done. Greg describes their parting as a difference in philosophy regarding adoptions. I think very highly of both Greg and LAA. Both have the best interests of the dogs very much at heart. April Reeves, who had served as LAA’s adoption coordinator for ten years, has since left the organization, though she continues to work with both Labs4rescue and Mutts4rescue. Jamie Clark, the volunteer I met at the shelter in Saint Martin Parish, now has April’s former position. Keri and her organization are also now doing more of their own transport using a van, so Greg no longer stops in Alexandria either. He still stops in Lafayette, so Keri brings any dogs she’s sending with Greg to Lafayette, where she brought Albie. Greg’s route now takes him farther west into Texas and includes Austin, Columbus, (an hour east of San Antonio) and Katy, a bit west of Houston.
YOU CAN HELP! SUPPORT THE RESCUE ORGANIZATIONS IN THIS BOOK
PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING THE WORK OF SOME OF THE RESCUE organizations mentioned in this book. Most of those listed below have links on their websites if you wish to donate online.
Rescue Road Trips
P.O. Box 107
White Cottage, OH 43791
www.rescueroadtrips.com/Rescue_Road_Trips.html
CenLa Alliance for Animals
P.O. Box 8641
Alexandria, LA 1306-1641
www.cenlaanimals.com
Companion Animal Outreach
P.O. Box 1415
Kemah, TX 77565
Forgotten Dogs of the Fifth Ward Project
P.O. Box 506
Porter, TX 77365
www.forgottendogs.org
Houston Shaggy Dog Rescue
kathy@houstonshaggydogrescue.org
www.houstonshaggydogrescue.org
Labs4rescue
P.O. Box 955
Killingworth, CT 06419
www.labs4rescue.com
Lafayette Animal Aid
P.O. Box 298
Carencro, LA 70520
www.lafayetteanimalaid.org
Mutts4rescue
www.mutts4rescue.org
To support Tom English’s work at the Brazoria, Texas County Shelter, please donate to 31Paws; that organization helps fund the medical supplies Tom needs to help the Brazoria dogs. You may specify that you want your donation to go to Brazoria:
31Paws
P.O. Box 8255
Bend, OR 97708
www.31paws.org
IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO CREATE A BOOK, JUST AS IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RESCUE a dog, and attempting to recognize and thank everyone who lent a hand along the way is rife with the risk that you will forget someone. To anyone I inadvertently overlook, my apologies.
First and foremost, of course, I am deeply indebted to Greg Mahle and his wonderful wife, Adella. Greg brought our Albie to us from Louisiana and for that alone, I am deeply in his debt. Greg is, at his core, a private person, and his rig is his home away from home when he’s on the road. It’s a tiny, self-contained little world, and until I hopped aboard, no one had ever been invited to ride along. It was a great privilege to share this private world with him. And obviously, without Greg, this book would not and could not exist. Greg has changed thousands of lives, human and canine, for the better. How many of us can say that? Greg and Adella were gracious hosts when I stayed with them and Adella’s son, Connor, at their Zanesville, Ohio, home. Rescue Road Trips is Adella’s life too, and she shares Greg for half the year with all the dogs he brings north. It’s not easy being apart half the time. Adella’s love and support, not to mention her sandwiches, keep Greg rolling.
I first wrote about Greg for Parade magazine and I am grateful to Catherine DiBenedetto for embracing the story and helping me bring it to life. As soon as the article appeared in print, my wife, Judy, started pushing me to try and turn it into a book. She saw the potential before I did and wasn’t going to stop leaning on me until I agreed to write the book proposal. She was right, and I am so thankful for her love, support, relentless prodding, and good judgment.