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Transport Saves Lives

August 10, 2007, 1:22PM MT

By Joy Moffat

From Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, these dogs have a new lease on life

From Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, these dogs have a new lease on life

By Jon Dunn, Best Friends Staff

Everyday in animal shelters around the world thousands of animals are put to sleep. It’s a tough pill to swallow for those of us who dream of a no-kill society. Have you ever walked through a shelter in your area? Chances are, if you have, that you will notice generally an overwhelming amount of one type of dog, waiting for their new life. Small dogs, pit bulls, big black dogs. It seems that each area has too many of certain kinds of dogs that no one wants, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t wanted somewhere!

By day, Robin Harmon is the Volunteer Coordinator for the Best Friends Animal Society LA programs. But Robin would see the overwhelming amount of small dogs taking up space in the shelters across Los Angeles, so she decided to do something about it.

“There are just too many small dogs here,” explained Harmon. “It seems like there are a million backyard breeders here, combined with breeders in Mexico there are just too many to adopt out.” Robin believes the overpopulation of these small dogs may be due to breeders trying to capitalize on the growth in popularity of the small dogs in LA.

But Robin knew that even though there were too many small dogs in the shelters in LA that other places around the country can’t find enough small dogs to adopt out!

“We partnered with a group in Salt Lake City, a place where small dogs are scarce,” said Harmon.

Members of Utah’s Animal Advocacy Foundation (U.A.A.F.) made plans to fly to LA and rent a car to bring back the dogs. In the meantime, Harmon rounded up some of the LA shelters’ neediest.

“I went in to several different shelters,” explained Harmon. “I found dogs that were on the red list, which means they could be put down at any time to make room.”

Harmon then pulled twenty dogs, had them fixed and flea dipped, making sure they were ready for their new homes. The U.A.A.F. team made it to LA, and then picked up the dogs, drove them back to Salt Lake and put them in foster homes for now.

“All these dogs will eventually be adopted,” said Harmon. “We hope that we can do more of these types of transports. We already have two groups in Phoenix that are interested in doing this!”

If this sounds like a good idea, we agree! Currently in development is a tool for the Best Friends Network that would allow people to coordinate transport for high-risk animals to other areas where the demand is greater. There currently is no exact launch date, but stay tuned!

The Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation is a 501(c)(3) that works to rescue and rehabilitate homeless animals. If you would like to help U.A.A.F. financially with this or other rescues please visit them on the web at www.uaaf.org.

To read another great transport story, see On the Road to New Homes

Posted by Joy Moffat

Comments

Posted August 10, 2007, 3:36PM by RobinH

None of this could have been done without the dedicated efforts of Jessica Cliver, Nadine Goodreau, Billy Criswell, and volunteers Kim O'Bannon, Robin Skov, Paula Landau, Christy Schilling, Tracy DeFritas, Laura Cepeda, Sandy Hughes, and Rick McDonald!! Many thanks to Jameson Yu, who helped with transport and drove to SLC with a carful of doggies and back by himself !! You are all heroes, not to mention Jenn and MaryJo from UAAF who opened their homes and hearts to these dogs!

Posted August 10, 2007, 10:27PM by rickmcd

Thanks for the kudos, Robin. How could we pass up something as wonderful as what you organized with the pet transport. I only wish I could have gone to SLC with Jameson to help him out with the drive.

Posted September 23, 2007, 5:15PM by PCdarrell

Summit County Friends of Animals took some of the dogs from LA through UAAF.

Posted September 12, 2007, 3:33PM by mare1992

Robin, check out the shelters in New Jersey. We always have a shortage (if you want to call it that) of small dogs. Seems we can't get enough of them for people here in New Jersey. Now is that a bad thing.... I don't know but for sure check New Jersey out because a lot of people here like small dogs and BLACK ones too. Just a tip I thought I might tell ya about.

Mary Ann
From NJ