When Susan (on left) and “J.W.” Hollington offered to volunteer to rescue dogs from an Ohio shelter and were turned down, it sent them into action. Now, fourteen months later, they’re about to open their own private shelter.
One dog in particular, a Doberman pinscher named Teddy “who died and shouldn’t have,” sent the couple into action, Susan says. They bought five acres of property in Findlay, Ohio, and had plans drawn up for a state-of-the art shelter and clinic, with walking trails outside the building, which is scheduled to open November 1. More than 100 veterinary technician students will rotate through the clinic to do internships. The Hollingtons named the center “Teddy’s Rescue,” after the Doberman.
They’ll concentrate on taking in dogs from seniors who can no longer keep them and, through the police department, dogs from domestic violence situations, as well as canines from the shelter, including pit bulls. Once they’ve been in operation for a while, Susan says they may start taking in cats too.
Their story is just one of hundreds from those attending this weekend’s No More Homeless Pets Conference in Las Vegas, sponsored by Best Friends Animal Society.
In the process of opening their own rescue center, the Hollingtons have become pit bull advocates. One rescue, Charmaine, their current pit bull foster, was saved from a certain death. She was picked up by animal control in January and taken to the county shelter.
“She arrived with bites and scarring,” Susan explains. “She might have been used as a bait dog. The shelter said she’d have to be euthanized because she was a pit.” Instead, because the shelter considers Susan and her husband to be experienced pit bull people, Charmaine was handed over to them.
But since pit bulls are on Ohio’s “dangerous dog list,” before the Hollingtons could keep Charmaine in their home, they had to take out a $100,000 liability insurance policy, have a six-foot fence around their property, and muzzle Charmaine whenever she’s in public.
It’s that type of one-sided, negative perception that Susan says she’s trying to change. And it’s Charmaine who is educating people for Susan. The dog has been invited to visit a middle school — while wearing a muzzle, per the law — to spend time with students. And, administrators at an assisted living home want Charmaine to visit its residents.
At the conference, Susan says, “I’ve learned so much about the pit bulls” and efforts to save them. She also met the people who are helping them, including Ed Fritz, Best Friends’ campaign specialist for Pit Bulls: Saving America’s Dog, a program designed to restore the image of pit bulls and end breed discrimination.
That’s exactly what Susan says she and her husband plan to do: challenge Ohio’s dangerous dog list and work to have pit bulls removed from it.
“I think we will work to help change the law,” she says.
For More Information About Ending Breed Discrimination
- Many short-haired muscular dogs are wrongly identified as "pit bulls." Do you know a pit bull mix when you see one? Click here to take the test.
Photos by Sarah Ause, Best Friends' photographer.