Ruff of Tulsa and Tumble of Topeka
were homeless English setters that faced possible death at
shelters, the grim end for up to 4 million dogs a
year.
But recently, they rolled into Kansas
City on their way to Easy Street.
Their story — and the story of
hundreds of other dogs like them — involves a touch of
underground railroad mixed with a modern-day pony express
operated by a passionate network of dog
lovers.
Retired Grandview firefighter Carl
Nylund, who logs up to 80,000 miles a year driving dogs, plays
a role. So does Kansas City ad executive Janette Boehm, who
turns her home into a stopover doggie bed and
breakfast.
They are a small part of a large
nationwide rescue network that helps purebreds and mutts, old
dogs and puppies, big dogs and small dogs. Most of the humans
involved are affiliated with small groups linked by e-mail.
Their goal: find endangered dogs and get them new
homes.
Many such groups operate all over the
country. Some focus on one breed. Others help many breeds.
Nobody knows for sure how many dogs they've saved, but there
have been thousands.
Rescues often begin with dog advocates
“surfing the shelters,” which means they walk through taking
notes on dogs, including when they are to be put to death,
Nylund said. Some look for specific breeds to rescue, others
look for any adoptable dogs nearing
execution.
The advocates help as many as they can
and sometimes board them until transportation and new homes
can be arranged. They notify volunteers by e-mail when dogs
are ready to be moved to foster or adoptive homes. Drivers
volunteer for legs of varying lengths.
The dogs are evaluated at their foster
homes and then put up for adoption. The evaluations determine
in part whether dogs might kill cats or bite
children.
“Some can live with cats and some
can't,” said Susan West of Des Moines, Iowa, a member of a
Pennsylvania-based rescue group that specializes in English
setters. “Some let kids pull their tails and some
don't.”
Dogs are spayed or neutered, given all
shots and put up for adoption for a $175 fee, she said. If an
owner wants to part with a dog for any reason the rescue
groups will take it and find it a new home. Before adoption,
families also are screened by a volunteer to make sure they
seem right for the dogs.
Ruff and Tumble landed softly because
West's rescue group found out about them and guaranteed them
good homes for life.
Tumble was a stray rescued from a
Topeka shelter, she said. Ruff hit the skids after his
Oklahoma family had to move without him.
West drew up a 21-leg run sheet to get
the dogs to far-away temporary foster homes. She solicited
volunteers through e-mails to more than 2,000 people. After
she attached names to each leg, “the doggies start moving,”
West said.
Friday, Ruff headed for Indianapolis
and Tumble started to Belle Mead, N.J.
Young volunteers Boehm had never met
dropped the dogs at her Kansas City home, where the elated
animals wanted to play all night and did some unfortunate
barking and door chewing. Boehm slept alongside them to calm
them.
At 6 a.m. Saturday, the dogs ate, ran
in her yard by Houston Lake and waited for the next driver,
Nylund, to take them to a handoff in Columbia, Mo. If any one
driver doesn't show, the system crumbles. But West, the Des
Moines coordinator, said she has never heard of that happening
with any animal rescue group.
Neither has
Nylund.
He runs Kansas City Rescue, which
specializes in Saint Bernards, but he's also on other e-mail
trees that serve other dogs. He got drawn into rescue work
about five years ago after his dog, Muggins, died. He was
bored before the rescues, he said.
“I quit wasting time and started
saving lives,” he said.
He has helped save more than 200 Saint
Bernards and many other dogs. West's setter group has found
homes for more than 80 dogs this year
alone.
Early Saturday, the dogs scrambled
into a large cage in the back of Nylund's van. Boehm, a
volunteer and former board chairman of the Humane Society of
Greater Kansas City, dashed outside toting a big jug of
mineral water for the dogs and a few other
things.
“Here are their health papers,” she
said. “Here are some little food treats.”
She also tossed in a knotted rope toy.
Big brown dog eyes looked at her as Nylund slid into the
driver's seat and turned on the van's engine. He and the dogs
had a deadline to meet. Like a tag-team highway version of the
old pony express, another driver would be waiting on
them.
“Let's go boys,” he said. “Let's
roll.”
Let's
go boys,” Carl Nylund of Grandview said Saturday before
setting off in his van to Columbia, Mo., with Ruff (in cage)
and
Tumble. On a stop in Kansas City, Tumble stayed with Janette
Boehm before heading to Columbia.
Ruff and Tumble arrived at their
foster homes Sunday evening.
Ruff's foster mother, identified as
Debbie G. in Indianapolis, sent an e-mail that said: “Ruff is
a big old goof ball and very sweet and is now settled in his
dinner at my house…. To all the drivers from OK. to Indie,
thank
you.”
