Mari and I cried our eyes out

Our usual transport wasn't running this Saturday, and Mari and I decided not to pick up on another one. Instead on Friday we ran two local transports.
It started when an urgent plea and a picture of a border collie came from our friend at theYork County shelter. "Please save this sweet girl, she's out of time!" I love border collies, and my friend that owns Camp Bark does too. I wrote her and told her if she could foster her I would transport her.

Since Mari and I never like to do just simple things, we picked up on another urgent need to pull some dogs from the Gaston County shelter and move them to Huntersville.

We headed out early and on the way to York, my friend from Camp Bark called. "There's a chihuahua there that's terrified. Just bring her." Then the group that needed us to pull from Gaston called and said York has a rat terrier, can we bring it too. So instead of pulling a border collie at York, we also had a chihuahua and a rat terrier.

From York, SC we returned to Waxhaw, NC and dropped off Heidi the Chihuahua and Rita the Border Collie.

We dropped the two passengers at Camp Bark, then stopped at Mari's house to let Buddy and Foxy, her dog and foster dog out. Buddy's an old guy and has to go out every 4 hours. Then we stopped for a quick lunch, and headed to Dallas, NC to the Gaston County shelter.

Gaston is known as a high-kill shelter, not friendly to rescues. We felt it the minute we got there, like they were not happy that we were pulling dogs. The place is so sad. We had to go into the horrible shelter to pull the dogs. The first one was a terrified chihuahua that snapped and snarled and had a sign on his cage "Biter! Not adoptable". The shelter worker wouldn't go in to get it, he was too afraid of the dog, so Mari and I did. He put up a real fight, but once we got him into the crate he settled down.

Next we pulled another rat terrier, then a dalmation mix. No struggle there. Next we got a chocolate lab. I didn't have enough crates so we tethered him in the back. It was horrible there, to see all the dogs that looked at us as though to plead, "Take me too!" Old dogs, puppies, dogs that looked like they'd never had a bath or had spent their life at the end of a chain, dogs that looked like they'd been fought. It was heart wrenching and at times Mari and I looked at each other and sobbed.

We were loaded and started to drive away and Mari started crying. There was another chocolate lab that had been dumped there by it's owner... a mother and pup that were found tied to the gate a few mornings before. I turned around and went back in and got her. We made room for her behind the passenger seat. All she wanted was to put her head between us and nuzzle our elbows. Such a beautiful sweet lab/ basset mix.

The car was packed. Crates were crammed in on top of other crates. We had bungee cords criss-crossing, holding them in place. Finally we left. I never want to go back there again. The images are etched into my brain and my heart.

Once underway, the first chocolate lab that was tethered in the back started to heave. And poop. All over everything, including the dog that was crated next to him. Oh, did I mention I was driving Jim's Toyota Highlander? Yep. What a mess. We couldn't open the windows all the way, either, because in the course of being sick he had slipped out of his slip lead tether and was trying to climb over crates to get to the front, spreading the mess around even more.

It was a stressful, sickening ride, in an hour we had gotten lost twice, but finally arrived at Great Dane rescue in Huntersville, NC. The farm worker held up a remote and opened the big iron gates. He motioned us to follow him back to the kennels. One by one he carefully unloaded the animals, and they seemed calm and ready to follow him. Even the "biting killer chihuahua" that had put up such a fit was suddenly sitting in his lap kissing his cheek. This guy had to be the second coming of the dog whisperer! He was constantly followed by a chihuahua mix named Ricky, that trotted behind him.

He was great, helped us clean ot the car, clean out the crates, and disposed of all the blankets and towels that were too disgusting to keep.

At 4PM we were back home, cloroxing crates and cleaning the inside of the car so you couldn't tell what a mess had been made!

Alas, I have no pictures of the Gaston dogs. But the dogs we transported from there will long be remembered. And the ones we left behind we will remember with our tears. By now they have all been killed.

It is not merely an offhand choice to make whether to spay and neuter your pets. It is a mandate from the heart that has seen shelters like this and know that irresponsible breeding causes an exploding pet population and more of these animals being killed merely because they were alive and no one would take them in. It's sickeing.

Many times I have heard people defend breeding dogs, saying,"I want my child to witness the miracle of birth". My answer is, "Then they should also see the horror of those same animals dying in a gas chamber." Because that's where most of them will end up. But mine are pure breeds, you say? 40% of the dogs killed in shelters are pure bred. Too expensive? Let me tell you where the low and no-cost spay neuter clinics are.

Can you tell I'm angry? Damn right. Come visit a shelter in the Carolinas some time and see why.