A Day in the Life of a Rescue Dog

Have you ever wondered what a day in a life was like for a rescue dog? Well, in this episode, we are going to take you on a journey from the time an animal comes into a rescue to the time they find their forever home, so you can see what it's like not only for them, but what it's like for the people involved in that process. You'll also learn how rescues are different from shelters and how different rescues take different approaches and philosophies to finding pets homes. So this is a great episode You're not going to want to miss. Stay tuned. You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. We also share inspiring rescue and adoption stories from people who've taken their love of pets to the next level by getting involved in animal welfare. My name is Amy Castro and I'm the founder and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and a columnist for Pet Age Magazine. I've rescued thousands of animals and help people just like you find the right pet for their family. My mission is to help pet parents learn all the ways that they can care for, live with and even have fun with their pets, so they can live their very best lives and their pets can too. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro. Today is going to be a really interesting episode because we're going to take you through a day in the life of a dog in rescue, and I hope that through this episode we'll be able to clarify what rescue life might be like, the fact that rescue life in different rescues is different, and also maybe shine a little bit of a light on the difference between shelter and rescue life for pets. So to help me do all of this and accomplish this today in this episode I have with me Donna Ball, and Donna is a member of the board of directors for an organization called Rangers Reach. I'm going to have her tell you a little bit about that. But not only is she a board member because those of us in rescue we wear a lot of hats, and so not only is she a board member, she's also on the medical board of Rangers Reach Rescue, and she also fosters the pets for Rangers Reach, and so she's very, very involved in the process. So I think she's probably more than amply qualified to let us know what a day in the life for a dog at Rangers Reach is. So, donna, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me today.

I'm glad to be here. This is exciting for me to go through this process and to educate people on what it's like to be in the rescue business. I started 5 years ago and our first 2 dogs that we took in were 2 puppies, and so my daughter and I got started in this and we ended up foster failing Gus and Peggy.

That happened so much when you first start.

Yeah, but what got us started was just the need of people to be able to take the dogs into their homes so that they would not end up in a shelter, so that when we have them with us they learn a routine of what's like what it's like in a home, instead of being in the shelter. They learn to socialize. We get to test them to see if they're food aggressive, if they like children, do they like cats? So we have that opportunity that they're not going to receive in a shelter. We take care of their medical needs, we post on shelter, love and pet finder so that people have an idea of where they are and then we can match them up with the adopters. We have to be real specific, because they may not do well with cats, they may not do well with small children. So it just gives us an opportunity with them to know what it's going to be like when they get into a home.

And I think it's so important that you said that, because there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that adopters and the public don't necessarily see. And I want to stress a couple of things that you said. First of all, a lot of times people don't realize that rescues are not generally. I mean, some rescues have facilities that you can come and go and visit animals and adopt as you please, but a lot of us myself included in rescue, at least a chunk of our process is foster based, which basically means that we have pets in homes around our community with various volunteer fosters, and so sometimes there's a process of getting a chance to visit a pet and how that works. But the key to that foster life is exactly what you said is that it gives us a chance to see what the animal is really like, and that's something that's oftentimes quite different from a shelter pet, although in a shelter the staff can get to know the pets a little bit, but they don't necessarily always get to know the depth of information that we get about those pets and how they interact in their environment with other people, with other pets, like you said. So the foster process is a really good one, but it's labor intensive. There's only so many dogs people can have in their house and we won't talk about we don't want to go to jail, right, but we don't want to talk about how many animals we sometimes have in our houses as fosters. But that's because there's not enough of us that are doing the fostering. I did want to ask you so it's always interesting to me the names that rescues get and why they're called that. So your rescue is called Ranger's Reach and I know there's a story behind it. Can you tell us, like the Readers Digest version of, why is it called Ranger's Reach?

Our coordinator, jolana. Her first foster that she took in his name was Ranger, and he went in for surgery for heartworm treatment, where they're going to remove the heartworms out of the heart, which is very, very risky. And he did not make it, and so she decided I'm going to start this rescue in its Ranger and its Ranger's Reach, because she wanted to educate people on the importance of heartworm treatment and taking care of your dogs, and so it began as going to be an outreach and has now turned into rescuing many dogs.

Okay, great, like I said, it's always so interesting to me to hear those stories and what motivates those of us who do this. And for people who don't realize this, statistically the vast majority of people involved in rescue are women, which I don't know if it's because our nurturing side or what it is, but the vast majority of rescuers are women, and even with our podcast audience I know there's guys out there listening and we love you and keep listening, but probably 90% of the people that are listening are also women. So that's maybe something in our DNA that draws us to take care of all kinds of things that can't take care of the micelles. So that's an interesting story about how you guys get started. So, as far as because, like I said, all rescues are different and many of the things that you've mentioned so far are things that most of us do fairly standardly and, like I said, people don't realize how much goes on behind the scenes and how much expense feeds into all of that. But as far as the process, so we want to talk about the day in the life. So a single dog comes to your attention how and then let's walk through what happens to that dog from the time that you become aware of him to the time that hopefully it gets adopted. And people also need to realize that sometimes these animals stay in foster for months and some organizations years, and that's a whole another topic for another time. As to you know how long is too long, how long is too short? Are we shipping them off too fast, that kind of thing. But we'll do another episode on that. But if you could walk us through that, I think that would be super interesting. I'd love to learn what you guys do.

Well, there's a couple of different ways. One is we have a couple of shelters that call us from time to time and we'll say you know, we have this mom and litter of puppies, can you take them? And some shelters will only let rescues tag the litter of puppies. Sometimes we have some dogs that need medical help and so they will call us. I have one shelter that calls me on a regular basis that you know a dog tested positive for Parvo. I work in a Parvo center, so they call and if we can find a rescue to take them in, we will take them. We also have people that will just call us and say, hey, I found some puppies that were dumped. We had some puppies that have just been in the center that had been dumped, and so we pick them up and of course, you know they had some medical issues that we had to tend to, their you know, digestion, because they've just been eating junk. We also have people will want to sell a dog. They'll post it like in the green sheet, or they'll post it different places. You know, I want to sell this dog. We just picked one up recently in Galveston. Somebody couldn't keep the dog so they had a rehoming fee for $75. And this was a registered Frenchie, I believe, and the people just couldn't take care of it. When it's a personal dog, we have to have them sign an owner surrender, which means you're giving us the dog and you no longer have any strings attached. We also, when people call and say I found this dog, first of all we check for a microchip, and we have found dogs that have been owned and we got them reunited with their families, so microchipping is extremely important. Anyway, when the dogs come in, we check them, see if they need to be seen by vet, and then every dog that we take in has our microchip in them, and we have. We do have some pregnant moms that we take on that have been out on the streets. We have street feeders that go out and feed dogs and they'll call us. We have one dog in particular, beau. He was found out on the streets. He was a lab pit and weighed 35 pounds and he was in bad shape, and so we took him in and he had been in boarding for a while. He was first foster couldn't keep him, so he ended up in boarding. So our coordinator called and said Donna, can you go pick up this dog out of boarding and he's going to be a hospice dog. Long story short, beau got treated for his heartworms, he got neutered, we had his anemia and all that taken care of and he was here almost a year and we got him adopted and he left my house weighing 70 pounds. So those are cases you know that we'll take on.

Wow and I think that's interesting for people to know is that rescues? You know they have animals coming at them from all different directions. Like you said, you've got you start forming alliances and relationships with your area, municipal shelters and this is something to understand the difference between a rescue and a shelter Municipal shelters Many times they're required to pick up anything in their community that's on the street and there. You know, there's only so much space in the world. I always tell people I could stack dogs to the ceiling in my house and there'd still need more dogs that need to to be rescued. And so shelters will often reach out. You know, instead of just waiting for the public to adopt, they'll reach out to rescues to use and we call the. You know we use the term pull to pull animals from the, from the shelter, so that they don't have to be euthanized, because very often, especially in Texas, dogs get euthanized every single day because the shelter runs out of space and needs to make space for something new that's new, that's coming in. So you've got shelters reaching out. You know, help us, please take these animals. You've got owners who have sometimes legit reasons and sometimes ridiculous BS reasons for giving up their pets and they want us to help. And then you've got the you know the random animal and then you send a huge animal problem with stray pets on the streets and so you know we're finding animals ourselves and I think that's awesome that you guys have a feeding program. That's a whole nother. A whole nother. Thing to manage as a rescue is to be out there in the community providing food to basically animals on the street. But you know, pulling animals off the street, no matter how big or how small your rescue is, it's a constant barrage of help me, help me, help me, help me, and it's it's really hard because there's only so much help we can provide. So and you also had mentioned and people I wanted to draw attention to that You'd mentioned an animal being in boarding. That's one. That's something that is different across different rescues as well. Like we at Starlight Outreach and Rescue have not boarded, we will sometimes board something at our vet. We have a good relationship with a, with a couple vets, but this one in particular, but it might be one dog. There are rescues that pay hundreds and thousands of dollars a month for, you know, a private boarding facility. So somebody's got a business boarding dogs for people that go on vacation and they're literally paying those people to hold those dogs because they've got no place else to put them. So it's, it's very interesting to see how these animals are living. You know, sometimes they're in a foster home, sometimes they're living at a vet, sometimes they're living at a boarding facility until we can get them homes, or or, as you mentioned, in instances of animals that have medical issues, which is a whole another ball of wax. It's not as simple as I get a dog, I turn it around and in three days I've got an adopter for it. You know, sometimes we get lucky, but oftentimes it is oftentimes it's animals staying with us for months, and some in some organizations, years, before it is even, you know, physically, emotionally, mentally, capable of being adopted, and sometimes they're not at all. And then we end up hanging on to them and I know that you have some dogs, donna, that are kind of they're just going to live out their time with you, as at your, at the foster home or at the boarding kennel or wherever it might be, because they're just not adoptable for one reason or another. So I just wanted to make sure, because that's a, you know it's, it's a lot of information and we take it for granted because this is our life. But I want to make sure people are really seeing this, you know, understanding how this, how this process can work and how it can easily become overwhelming. Okay, so you've got. You've got the animals. They're, you know, they're in foster, they're boarding, they're, you know, waiting to be adopted. Let's just, let's take it from the position of an animal. You get a dog that comes in and you know it's now healthy and it's ready to go. As we say, what's the? What happens then? What goes, what's the process from there?

Well, we have. We post dogs on sheltered love and pet finder and people from up north because there's a shortage of dogs there. They go through and they'll shop for a dog and they will call us or they send us an email and say you know, I would like to, I'm interested in this dog. We require them to do an application first and then we go through and look at their application and see if they're going to be a fit for this dog. Some people want them for emotional support dogs and we have to have that certificate. And so once we go through all of that process, sometimes we will do FaceTime with them so they can actually see the dog and their temperament and how tall they are and everything. And once that goes through and they say, yes, I want the dog, then we have to have them pay a deposit, a hundred dollar deposit, so that once they get spayed and neutered they will get that refunded. But by the state of Texas we have to do that.

That was a question that I had for you yesterday on the whole spay and neuter thing. So you're charging the deposit on animals that are too young, like somebody's adopting a puppy and you're not going to. You know you don't really want a neuter, ideally a two month old puppy or a three month old puppy. You know there's an appropriate age that we would want to neuter pets, based on their breed and size and things. So so you're charging that deposit to ensure that they actually get it done at their vet because you're not able to do it beforehand. Is that? Am I understanding that correctly?

Correct, correct. And then we discuss adoption fees and if they agree to that, then we have to set up transport and we set it up with the adopters and then we put the dog on transport and some of the transports have a website that we go to and they'll update us, you know, as they go, because sometimes it's a two day trip, and then we get pictures once the dog gets there and we try to stay in touch with the adopters and we are available to them if they ever have any questions or something you know isn't going right. So we are there also to support them if they need that, because we want it to be successful. We don't want an adopter to fail and we want this puppy to be, you know, in a home and to stay there, because they've already been moved so much. We don't want them to have an attachment disorder. So we want them, we want it to be successful and we do everything we can to get them to be where they're at.

I just I want to, I want to add a little piece in, just so people understand, about the whole transport process is because you said it could take, you know, two days is that the dogs are not staying on a truck for two days and, you know, living in crates, they are the people that are transporting it. You said you use a company that has a nice young couple that basically turned this into their business transporting pets and so the dogs get, you know, they stop, they let them out, they let them go potty things like that along the way. So it's labor intensive and that's probably why it costs so much. I also think people need to realize with, and especially with rescues that do transport animals, because all rescues have different pricing structures on what they charge for adoption fees. They have different philosophies about. Like we were having a meeting yesterday and talking about the fact that our particular adoption fees, by the time you add up just the basic care and we're not transporting at Starlight, outreach and Rescue but by the time you add up the basic care, our adoption fees are about half of what we actually spend just to take in an animal. And so you know we're reassessing that because basically every animal that we help, we're losing money on, which means we can't help as many animals. And so I just want to make it clear to people who are in other parts of the country because we've got listeners from around the country and around the world is that when you're getting an animal that you're adopting from another state and the adoption fee is, you know, let's say it's $500, $700, whatever it might be Think about what goes into that. I mean alone it costs. It's costing these organizations $350 just to get the animal to you. And then I know that, like our numbers when we added them up yesterday, you know average costs that we spend for a local adoption just to bring the animal up to you, know vaccines and get them spayed and neutered and microchip them and test them for this, and that it's about $300 and that's a discounted rate. So now you take the $350 to transport. The $300 it costs just for a and that's a healthy animal, not one that needed any surgery or anything. It's a lot of expense. So I think people need to realize what they're getting for the money too. You know there's a, there's a value that you're getting for that adoption fee, whatever it might be, that if you try to do any of that on your own, you know you want to do all that vetting on your own and you want to pay to have somebody drive your dog from Texas to Wisconsin or wherever you are. You're going to pay way more than that. So I just want to kind of get on my soapbox a little bit on that. One is that these, these fees are not just rescues trying to make money. We're nonprofits. We're not trying to make money, we're just trying to keep the boat afloat and help as many animals as we can.

And sometimes we have, like our older dogs, that we're having a hard time getting adopted. We do have sponsors that will sponsor that adoption fee, so that then you just pay transport. So there are different ways that we go and we drop our prices sometimes, but you know just the expense alone. I go through a 45 pound bag of dog food. That's $60 in about five days, especially when they're growing puppies that you know are hungry and and some of these dogs don't know when to stop eating because they haven't had food and so they're just going to eat until they think they're full. So we have to limit to sometimes on these dogs that you know you're not going to overeat yourself and then end up with another issue.

And you know I want to stress too that you know the adopt you mentioned, the follow up after the fact is that you know I feel like we do that pretty well too is that I can't say we call all our, all our adopters, but we do check in on certain animals, especially if they had certain issues, and we're always there for them when it comes to, you know, questions, problems, concerns, whatever it might be. So you know that's something for people to know about when they do adopt from a rescue, which you know may not a shelter, may not be able to provide the same kind of support or ongoing support as a rescue can. So definitely at least reach out and ask, you know, if you need some help or you're having some problems, to your local rescue. So anything else as far as that, that process, yeah, go ahead.

One of the things that we do is we are transparent. We we tell it all everything that we know about this dog. We're going to tell you so that there's not any surprises Once you get the dog Well, did you know that this dog would? And if there is something that arises after you get the dog, please let us know, because we're willing to help you if we can, for whatever's going on. And we have also sent, in some states and in some areas, a list of vets that will stay in Newt are so that it's cheaper for you. So we're going to help in any way that we can. So reach out to us and we're we're going to help you with that.

All right, yeah, that's that's. That's good advice, I know, for us at Starlight we give a lifetime return guarantee and the reason we call it outreach and that's why I liked when you explained why it's the rangers reach piece, because we don't just call it Starlight Rescue, we call it outreach and rescue because we do a lot of outreach. We want to help owners without taking their pets away from them, especially if they're good people. We want to help shelters so that they don't have to euthanize pets. So we're not just, you know, not just about picking up animals off the street, but kind of like, like Donna said, we get animals from all sources. So there's a lot of similarity in our rescues in that way. You know, the intake process, the medical evaluations, the testing and all of that are basically the same. One of the differences, I would say, is that you guys focus on dogs. We have focused in the past mostly on cats because we really struggle to get dog fosters. Right now I have two and for the most part they can't do it all the time. One can only do it in the summer times because she's a teacher and the other one, you know it's going to be limited on her schedule. She's got kids, things like that. So we really, for whatever reason, we struggle to find dog fosters, so we focused a lot more on cats, but we do have dogs that come through our programs and, like I said, the process is similar. They end up fostering here at my house for the most part, or at a foster home. Other differences we don't do transport currently although it's something that we have thought about and are investigating but we do pretty much local adoptions only that way that we can more easily follow up if we need to provide further support after adoption. You know we can still send people to our local veterinarian because we get a discount there and if you take it to your vet and you want us to help, you pay for some aftercare. You know it's going to cost us a lot more money if we do it that way. So I think for the most part the process is very similar. We don't do boarding of animals because we generally, for dogs, just don't take in more than what I can have at my house and what I can have in those two foster homes. Now that is changing for us and I'm super excited about it this year and it's been going on for a while it's been a bit of a longer term project because you know we're doing it as money is available my own personal money, because I have to pay for part of it, but also, you know, rescue money as well. As we are building on my property here we refer to my property as the rescue ranch. So we've got a seven acre piece of property in Alvin, texas, and we have currently have an outbuilding I'm looking at it out my window over here and it's a 10 by 20 converted shed. That is our isolation building. So if we have something that can't be with other animals, that would go in the isolation building. And then I converted my garage into a cat room. So that's where the cats live, because we do dogs and cats. But we're also building a dog building, so exclusively for dogs with dog runs that go in and out, it's got a fenced yard and that is in process. So we're probably about three quarters of the way to finishing that. But once we get that done, you know we're still going to be smaller on the dog side than you guys, you know, unless we get more dog fosters, because any building can only hold so many dogs and I can only clean up after so many and trying to run the rescue and a business, but it will increase our ability to help more dogs by about 400%. So we're super excited about getting that that building done. Our goal is getting getting pets into the right home, the right fit home, so that you know which and I'm glad you said that to Donna. About the education piece and really being super transparent with people about what this animal is about and that's why it's good for us to have them for a while to get to know them, to really see the ins and outs. And one thing I would say to people who are listening to this if you are thinking about adopting a pet from a rescue and you're reading the description and the description has parameters Well like no children under the age of 12. Don't call us. I mean I'm sorry to sound rude, but if you've got a three year old and a five year old, don't call about that dog because there's a reason we put that on there. It could be the dog is too rambunctious. A dog has not been properly socialized around small children and it's not a good situation for you or your family. If we say it's not good with cats, I mean we've had this happen. We've got a dog that was just returned because it's a bull terrier and there are certain breeds that have you know either. You know sometimes it's just the personality of the dog. A lot of times it's the breed and the prey drive that they have that, no matter what you try to do, it's not going to be good with a cat. So don't ask for my dog If you've got a cat. You're wasting my time and you're wasting your time and don't get a cat and this is why this dog got returned. Don't get a cat after we've already very clearly told you this dog is not safe with cats, because you're going to have a problem and the cat got injured and so now you want to return the dog. So we don't just put those parameters or that guidance and information about that pet into these descriptions on pet finder or, you know, shelter, love or these other places when we promote animals and we don't just put it for our health. We put it out there so that people who don't fit those parameters don't try to apply for this animal. Like I said, because it's a. You know it's a waste of time for us in processing that and it's a waste of time for you because you know a good rescue who understands that animal is not going to adopt out an animal to you just because you say you want it if we know it's not a good fit. So that's my soapbox on that subject.

Right. Well, that's like when we get healers in and and somebody will call and say you know the dogs nipping my child. Okay, they're a healer. A healer is a dog. That's a working dog to herd cattle or to herd sheep. So if your children are not behaving, they're going to nip them.

Yeah, that is huge. I think it's worth probably talking a little bit about. You know, rescue life compared with shelter life, so I'll kind of kick it off and then and then see what you've experienced, if it's different, the same, that kind of thing. So prior to starting Starlight Outreach and Rescue, I and even actually concurrent with running Starlight Outreach and Rescue I volunteered at a local animal shelter, municipal animal shelter. You know, as we all have seen on the news that you know and we've seen horror stories about shelters. You know oftentimes it's in rural areas, but not necessarily Most of the time when you, when you think about a shelter, it's going to be a city or county run facility and it is an offshoot of. Usually they fall under either the city's public works department, but more often than not these days it falls under the police department because they're tying this issue of dogs specifically, but also cats and other animals roaming the streets as being an element of public safety. You know, if there's a dangerous dog roaming through a neighborhood that you know it should be part of the public safety mission of a city or county to pick that dog up and remove it to keep the public safe Right. So oftentimes that is the primary goal of a city or county animal shelter and secondary in many instances, is the. You know there's always going to be some element of reuniting the pet with their original owners. So if a dog gets picked up off the streets by, you know, your average municipal animal shelter, it's going to be brought into the facility, it's going to be scanned for a microchip. If it's got a microchip, they're going to, you know, try to track down the owner. That's why it's so important for those of you who have your dog's microchip to keep your information up to date. And then you know, the owner come, picks up their pet Great, that's how it works. But more often than not the animal doesn't have a microchip or there's no information on the microchip that's viable. So the animal stays in the shelter. So the animal will get put in a kennel or a run. It may be by itself, it may be put with other animals of its same, you know, sex and size, depending upon the facility and their rules and regulations. And what varies is what's called length of stay. So as the no kill movement has grown over the years, shelters are trying to compete, and I don't mean compete in a negative way, I mean trying to meet the public expectation of not euthanizing animals, because in many, in many communities and also, you know, in the past, length of stay would be as short as 48 hours, three days. So basically an animal would be picked up off the streets. The owner had three days to come find it. If they didn't, it would be euthanized because there's another animal right behind it that needs to come in Again as this element of no kill and people have been appalled by that and these things have put pressure on shelters to change the way they do things. Length of stay has gotten longer to the point where sometimes shelter pets are staying in facilities a year, and so I don't really want to debate the pros and cons of that and the negative impact, because I'm going to do a whole nother episode on the impact of no kill and shelters trying to do that and what that does to the pipeline, because it really is a pipeline in many instances. But the difference between living in a shelter and living in a rescue or especially in foster homes really is going to come down in most instances to how much volunteer support that shelter allows and how much people participate in their local shelters, because most of the times and it's not the case in all shelters, but most of the times the staff is out on the streets picking up animals. They're doing other things. So the animals are getting kind of basic care. They're getting food and water and let out in the morning and they're getting the same in the evening. They're getting, you know, the cages are getting cleaned and again, this isn't a good shelter okay, but it's just the basics. They're not necessarily getting out for playtime, they're not getting out to run outside of that cage, and so you know, it's a very, very different life to animals that are living in. You know your average rescue and again I want to make it really clear that various shelters, you know, if shelters have the manpower and they've got staff that actually care about the animals, then more things happen that are more like what happens in rescue playtime, socialization, group, dog play, things like that. But you know you've got the other end of the spectrum where it's very bare bones care. And so I make that point because when people call us as a rescue and you probably experienced this too, donna they'll say, well, I want to adopt from a rescue and not from a shelter, because the rescue is no kill and the shelter kills and I'm thinking to myself you've got that totally backwards. So what they're saying to me is they're saying, amy, I want to adopt from you because you're kind enough not to kill animals, because we don't euthanize for space or anything like that. The only thing we euthanize is something that is, you know, medically unsavable. But you're not going to support a shelter that is forced to euthanize because of their policies and procedures or overpopulation. Why would you not save an animal from being euthanized? Like, please, people, if you want to adopt a dog, check your shelters first and then, if you're not finding something that is appropriate for you, your lifestyle, et cetera, then move on to the rescues and such, because you're not really doing a service that way. If you want to save lives, start with the shelters. In most instances, what are your? I don't know what have been your experiences as far as shelter, life for dogs, donna, and how that differs, because I know you pull from shelters.

Well, one thing with dogs in shelters and I guess the cost-effective wise I mean you can go to a shelter and adopt a dog, for sometimes they run these specials because they're trying to move dogs out You're going to pay $25, sometimes for an adoption fee, and that's a dog that's fully vetted, which means they've had their shots, they've been spayed or neutered. But again, they may not really know the dog, and so one of the things is that we do know our dogs, and just an example of the first dog I adopted from the shelter was it was after Harvey and his owner was in a shelter and had to be life-flighted and he never came back for his dog. We don't know what happened to the owner, but Roger had been at the shelter for four months and he had people would come walk in and he wouldn't even get up. He was depressed because nobody was paying attention to him. He was a three-year-old dog, heartworm positive. He had had a lot of inquiries. There was one adoption application ahead of me, but when they found out he was heartworm positive, they said no and so I was going to foster him, but I ended up adopting him. By the time I left and shelters have grants to have dogs treated, and so it did not cost me to get Roger treated for his heartworms, so I ended up getting taken care of, and so when they're in the shelter, like Roger, they can get depressed. I don't have a life, nobody wants me, and so that's why, with the shelters, we need to get these dogs out so that they can have a life.

Right and actually you reminded me of a couple of things too. So the heartworm issue is a big one and there are some shelters that do get grants, but there also are shelters that, either because it's getting a grant, takes work right. So there are shelters that maybe the employees don't really care to put in that extra effort or because of the way that they're structured, they're not allowed to accept certain types of money, whatever the case may be. So when you do adopt from a shelter and you get that $25 dog although it may and I will say it does vary too as to what things are included as far as spaying, neutering, things like that I mean most of the time those things are gonna be covered because it's part of the law, but heartworm treatment there may not get, you may not get a grant. The other thing that I will say in my experience and having volunteered at a shelter for 10 years, is that some don't heartworm test until after you adopt the dog. So you adopt the dog, they may or may not have spayed or neutered it, but they're gonna cover it. Now you go to the vet. Now you're gonna get your shots. Now you're gonna get your heartworm test. Now the dog's heartworm positive and a heartworm treatment depending upon where you live in the country, if you were paying for it yourself and it also varies based on the size of the animal could be anywhere as low as I'll put it on the super low end $250 to $1,500. And it's probably even wider range than that, especially on the high end. But it's gonna be hundreds of dollars to treat a dog so and it's a process. It takes months of effort to go through that process. And so if you go back to that shelter and you say, hey, this dog's positive, and it's like, okay, well, return it. And guess what they're gonna do? They're gonna euthanize it. So, and again, that's not all shelters, but that's just an example. On the, the other thing that is exactly what Donna was saying is that the longer an animal stays in the cage without getting out, without getting interaction with other animals and humans, either they can go from one extreme to the other. They can go from being a perfectly happy dog to being quite depressed or from being a non-aggressive dog to being an aggressive dog. So, like you said, I mean the bottom line is whoever's doing it? Getting these animals out of most shelters is the optimal situation is to get them out of there as quickly as possible. The other thing, too, to keep in mind as far as health testing and things like that, that there are shelters that will do heart room test and so the test the animal on intake they'll give it some vaccines. It's heartworm negative. The animal's there for three months or however long, but the animal's not been on heartworm preventative any during that time because they don't do that. And so, yeah, it was heartworm negative three months ago, but it's not heartworm negative now when I get at home or a couple of months from now. So there are challenges and risks inherent in adopting any animal, but it's very important that people are aware of what does their shelter do or don't do and what are they gonna cover or not cover when it comes to the animal that you're adopting, and I think those are the same questions for rescues as well. But I think also it's important that people don't assume and that was something that was always very frustrating to me when I was struggling with things that were happening at our shelter that were to me completely inappropriate and unnecessary that the public doesn't see that You're not gonna see that unless you get involved in the shelter and you volunteer or you ask questions and so there's a perception that oh yeah, they're good. Or sometimes it's the other way around, like, oh, that's terrible, don't take them to that shelter if you find a dog, because they're gonna kill it immediately, and I'm thinking we had dogs there for their 10 months. Like, where are you getting this from? So don't assume, don't get your knowledge from social media and from random people. Do your own investigation into the rescues and the shelters and if you wanna know if your local city shelter or your local county shelter is a good one, go there, ask questions, ask to see animals, see where they live, ask whether they get taken out of the cage, do they get playtime, do they go home with volunteers. The more you get to know, the more you can. Number one decide if you wanna get involved with that shelter and volunteer and help make things better or help support the staff if they're overwhelmed. Number two push your city council or your county leaders to make that shelter better if what you see is horrific. But don't put your head in the sand and just take it for the word of people on social media whether your shelter's good or bad or not. I mean, if you really wanna and if you care, you should investigate that stuff yourself, I think. But I still go back to the issue that if you are looking to adopt a dog and you have a especially a kill shelter, as we refer to it, one that does euthanize animals when they run out of space, then at least give those animals a chance. First and I know one of the episodes that we did with a dog trainer on picking a shelter dog if you're not sure whether you can assess a dog in a short visit, make more than one visit if that dog has time, or bring a trainer with you if you're not able to do that. Generally at least, according to the trainer that we had on the show, a lot of trainers will do that for either just a low consultation cost or maybe sometimes, if they're really into saving shelter pets, they'll do it for no cost. The other thing, too, is you can always ask shelters if you can take the animal home. A lot of them won't do it, but some might on a trial basis, just to make sure it's a fit to get used to that animal. So give your shelters a chance at least, but be smart about it. Make sure that you're knowing what you're getting into.

Well, and with the heartworms, why not? An infected mosquito bites a dog. It takes six months for that heartworm to develop, and so that's why we don't test a dog before they're six months old, because it's not gonna show up and that's why it takes time for it to show. And also, talking about dogs in the shelter, some shelters do have fosters that will take the newborn puppies, because puppies in a shelter is dangerous because they're not vaccinated and they're likely to get parvo and distemper. And that's why the shelters call us when they have puppies, because they want them out of there. And it's just like one of the dogs that we took in. We believe the mom had parvo, I had distemper, and she had 13 puppies and by the time I got her we were down to eight and we lost all but three because there's dogs that are there's diseases in the shelters. So that's why we need to get them out is so that they don't pick up all these diseases.

Yeah, and another thing to be wary about and I don't know if this, you'll correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I know in my experience, and it's mostly with cats, like I said is that most shelters, if they get newborn newborns like they need to be bottle fed still and there's no mom around that came in with them, which happens a lot with cats. People snatch up kittens and their mother abandoned them, kind of thing. If they don't have somebody to foster that animal and take it home and they don't have a staff member which many don't that will take them home and bottle feed them around the clock for a month, then they simply euthanize those animals because it's cruel and inhumane to leave them starving while you're not there overnight. You know, sometimes a shelter might close at six o'clock at night and nobody comes in and starts taking care of those animals till seven or eight in the morning, kind of thing. And so a newborn kitten that has to be fed every two hours. I don't know with puppies, I haven't had newborn puppies in a long time. How, like a real newborn newborn does that even really happen with dogs? Because dogs usually stick with their puppies, they don't wander off and leave them.

Well, there are times that something happens to the mom. She dies during birth, she, you know, maybe gets hit by a car or whatever, and so those puppies need to be bottle fed. So there's just different reasons. But yes, a mama dog's pretty much going to stay with their puppies. And sometimes too, people don't understand, like when they find kittens it's like, oh, the mom's abandoned them. No, she probably has not Leave those kittens where they're at and watch to see if the mom's going to come back. But nine times out of 10, the mama dog's not going to leave. She's going to take care of them, unless something's happened. Like we have a German shepherd that the two puppies were found beside the mom that had passed away. She'd gotten hit by a car and her two puppies stayed right there with the mom. So we got those two puppies, but dogs normally don't. We had one mama dog that she had parvo and her dogs had parvo, and even though she was so sick she still took care of those puppies regardless. So it is different. It is a different thing with dogs. They're more responsible. I guess they're more visual about staying with their puppies and taking care of them.

Yeah Well, one thing I will say and I know I said this episode is not supposed to be about cats, but this is just something that I have learned, that it just actually just clicked with me over the course of doing this podcast is that I never really thought about the difference between dogs and cats from the perspective of dogs or predators. Cats are predators and prey, and so a dog is going to stick and protect its puppies Cats because they're predator and prey. First of all, they're out looking for food, you know that kind of thing. But also by not drawing attention to where my kittens are hidden, you know I might be protecting them from prey. I'm going to have to do some research into that, but you're right. I mean, we tell people all the time, don't? You know if you can leave them where they are. If they're not, you know getting ready to get run over. Or I picked up some kittens one time where the mom had had the kittens up inside the little connecting part between a truck cab and a. It was like an 18-wheeler and it's where the front part connects. I don't know anything about trucks, but and obviously those kittens could not stay there, that truck needed to go across country. So we had to dig them out and you know the mom took off, but and I think we did actually eventually catch her and trapped her in spader. But anyway, that could be, that could be part of it. What we always tell people is you know, if you want to see if the kittens have been abandoned because you haven't seen the mom in a while, get some flour. I mean, don't put it on the kittens, but like maybe make a ring of flour around where those kittens are nested and then come back in a few hours and see, are their footprints? Come back the next morning, are their footprints? And you know, after a certain period of time, if there's no footprints going in and out of that area, then yeah, maybe something happened to the mom too. Maybe she did get hit or you know something, something got her. But don't be too quick to grab up those kittens, because it creates a whole. It creates a whole problem for the kittens, for rescues, for shelters and for the mom, who's now going to go breed and have more kittens even faster than she would have otherwise. So let's, let's talk a little bit about and I know you've told us a couple of success stories, but is there any particular success success story with a dog that you say to yourself Because I know we go through a lot of crap and I know you've got a lot of dogs at your house way more than I have right now but that makes all this worth it because it's like, because that happened, it's like that's what keeps me going. Is there one standout story that you have?

One in particular was a mailman that delivered in his neighborhood all the time and this one dog would chase him because he kept treats in his truck and he would give these dogs treats every day. So he went. He'd been off him for two weeks because he'd been sick and when he went back he was asking where was this particular dog that he called Teddy, and they said, oh, he got hit by a car. He said can I see the dog please? And the dog was in bad shape. So he went and picked him up and he called us and he said look, this dog needs some medical help and I can't, I can't do this. Can y'all help me? So we said sure. So he fostered the dog, we got him approved and he fostered Teddy and Teddy had to go through surgery. His pelvic was fractured, he had a leg that was fractured and come to find out it was old injuries and he had probably been beaten with a bat. And Teddy was the sweetest dog when I would have puppies, he'd love playing with the puppies. And so we finally got him adopted and we got pictures of Teddy going to the Florida Keys and swimming in the ocean and going hiking and camping with the family that adopted him. So sometimes you know these dogs have been through a lot, but they can overcome it with the right care and the right loving. That's the main thing is you just got to love them through whatever they've been through and accept them for what they are Right, and that's a key point, is that you know it's.

Then that goes back to my fit issue. I don't know that I can top those stories, but I'm going to tell one just quickly. We've had, you know, again, we don't do a ton of dogs, but one that stands out to me right now is a dog named Wallace. So the dog came to us through our veterinarian. It was very, very ill. The owner surrendered it and so he stayed at the vet's when he was a puppy. So he was a little puppy and puppies are always cute, right. So cute little puppy. They nursed him through and you know, and we paid and helped support of that. And then he was adopted by somebody and stayed with that person and I know, donna, you can relate to this, but stayed with that person. I don't remember his exact age, he was coming up on a year old and at that time the person had a baby and was living in an apartment and it was just too much to have the dog. So we took Wallace back. Well, wallace was a super cute puppy, but not the most photogenic adult dog, and in rescue, photos are everything I mean. It's really because that's all people were basing their initial decisions on. So Wallace came back to the rescue. You know he went through training and, you know, was having issues with behavior issues and so I brought him back here. Even though I did not have the space for him, I brought him back here to the rescue ranch and I was not experiencing a lot of the behavior issues that other fosters were experiencing. So we got him back on the adoption market. It took forever for him to get adopted, but he got adopted again and you know it was a perfect situation. There was no other dogs, no cats. It was a really nice gentleman that had a flexible schedule and I thought, okay, this is perfect. Wallace has gone for about a week and he's calling me up. That Wallace is, you know, attacking his another family member's dogs that visits a lot and it's becoming a problem, et cetera. And this is where I think you know, in rescues like, we can either just say, well, just bring him back, or we can troubleshoot. It depends on how bad you want to keep that animal in the home, especially if it is a good home. So I said, well, let me, if you don't mind. I would love to come and see the interaction. So I drive to the other side of Houston, spent two hours over there with this gentleman and his dad and his dad's dogs. And I won't get into the nitty gritty of it, but it was not, wallace wasn't picking the fight, he was just. He was joining into the anxiety and excitement of the behavior of the other two dogs. So we spent the two hours together. I told them, you know, I gave them advice on how to manage it. I was fully ready to get a trainer involved and pay for it myself if I had to, because this guy really loved this dog and wanted to keep him, but he also loved his dad and his family and they spent a lot of time together. Well, long and the short. A couple months later, I mean and the beauty is and this is a note for adopters follow the advice that you're given and realize it's not gonna happen overnight, but follow the advice you're given. We know what we're talking about and if we don't, we're gonna get an expert to help you do that if it's within our power. So, long and the short of it is. A couple months later, I'm getting pictures of Wallace, just like hanging out with the dad's two dogs and everybody's happy and it's all going great. So and this was a while back, so those are the things that keep us going is that we lose a lot of them, so to speak. Sometimes dogs pass away, sometimes it's sad, and that's, I think, a reason why a lot of times people don't wanna get involved in volunteering at shelters and volunteering at rescues, because sad things do happen. But we have to focus on the things that we're doing, right. But however you get involved, folks, just we just encourage you to investigate it and do something. If you're an animal lover, even if you've got your own pets, there's always something that you could be doing, even something small, that could be helping the plight of pets on the streets and pets in shelters and pets in rescues. So definitely investigate that and check it out, I mean find your rescue and ask what can you do.

Or find you a shelter and ask what can I do Because it's not too small, even if it's just something simple.

Yeah, well, and you mentioned the transport. That's another thing too, because I've made that run back and forth to Niederland to our favorite vet up there who does a lot of our orthopedic surgery. And yeah, it's a haul. I mean, it's over two hours from where I live and on one hand I wanna be there for one side or the other probably usually the drop off more than anything else, to just make sure we're on the same page about what are we doing with this animal and what's the process going to be and when does it need to be picked up, et cetera, et cetera. And also I've gotta pay. But if somebody else is willing to take a nice ride out into the country and pick up that dog, collect the instructions for what needs to happen when they get home and bring it back to me and we do have volunteers that help with that, even on a local basis, so that's a huge help is just being willing to do a transport for an animal to a vet or to an adopter or whatever the case may be. That's another good option.

Well, and we're willing to, even if you're gonna drive to do transport somewhere, we're even will give you gas money, but it's just. We can give you gas money but we just don't have the time to because we've had other responsibilities to take this animal where it needs to be.

Right, well, donna, thank you so much for being here and because I did not know a lot about Rangers Reach other than the fact that I know you guys have a good reputation and we always like to stay in touch with folks that we know we're doing things the right way. But thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. I appreciate all of your information and insight into your rescue.

Well, thank you for inviting me. I love to share my experiences, but it's just my passion, so I appreciate you asking me to do this.

Definitely Well, and for all of you who are listening, thank you for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. I hope that this episode gave you some insight into the lives of the dogs that come through rescue and a little hint about the cats, but also what it's like to be involved as a human being in animal rescue, and I hope it encourages you to get involved in some way or another. So again, thank you so much for listening to another episode and we will see you next time. Thanks for listening to Starlight Pet Talk. Be sure to visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom for more resources, and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, so you'll never miss a show. If you enjoyed and found value in today's episode, we'd appreciate a rating on Apple, or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would be great too. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk, and if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.