Long Distance Mutt

Photo: Pete Wilcox, WANA Commons

And just what is this Mutts4Resue outfit, anyway?

I figure I ought to know a bit more about this organization that put Bubbles on my radar so I go to the homepage and learn it’s a group of volunteers dedicated to saving homeless dogs who’ve been abandoned or surrendered to high-kill shelters.  “Our mission is to save these dogs,” their home page says, “and give them a second chance for a happy life.”

I dig a little deeper and discover Mutts4Rescue is not a shelter, it doesn’t have employees or regular hours, and its volunteers “foster” the animals until they find what the group calls their “forever home.”  I also learn that because pet owners in the Deep South tend not to neuter their animals or keep them on leashes, there are a lot more unwanted or abandoned animals — and a higher euthanasia rate — in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.   “Rescue Road Trips” of Ohio handles the logistics of transporting these southern dogs to their new homes in the northeast, making a pickup sweep twice each month through those southern states with a temperature controlled, 18-wheel air-ride kennel.  At each pick up stop, the dog-loving driver and an attendant check the health and paperwork of every animal, then load ‘em up and move ‘em out for scheduled drops with their new owners in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire. A network of volunteer “angels” meet the truck at each scheduled stop to assist with potty breaks, snacks, and exercise.

It may seem strange to adopt an animal from hundreds of miles and a time zone away when there are adoptable animals right here in our area code.  But like Internet dating or an agency adoption, PetFinder and Rescue Road Trips seem to offer the possibility of a better match than we might have made on our own, visiting local shelters and kennels, where I’d likely have been unsettled by all those dogs and puppies and their big brown eyes — and unlikely to have left without one.