Shelter dogs find new hope thanks to rescue and transport organizations

Photos by Brian Batista

Graphic by Sarah Sharpe

Story by Katie Rice

CHAPEL HILL — In 2016, 26,095 dogs in shelters across North Carolina were put to death.

Some breeds are more likely to be euthanized than others. Pit bulls — an umbrella term used to classify various breeds — are generally the first to get euthanized in shelters across the United States.

For every animal euthanized, there are several more waiting for adoption in shelters and foster homes. North Carolina is one of few states without mandatory spay and neuter laws, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, which results in overpopulation and overcrowding of shelters. Add cultural preferences and North Carolina’s shelters become overcrowded and underfunded.

Across the state, rescue organizations are working to find homes for displaced dogs, including transporting them out of North Carolina to areas where dogs are in demand. These organizations are saving lives, one dog at a time.

Old North Canine Rescue

Old North Canine Rescue in Burlington, North Carolina, has found a way to save shelter dogs in North Carolina by getting them out. The organization works with SAVEDOG Project to transport dogs out of the state to Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C, where there is more demand for rescue dogs. In these locations, Operation Paws for Homes helps these dogs find families, said Felicia Spadini, the director of Old North Canine Rescue.

Spadini said shelters in the North are constantly in need of highly adoptable dogs, which she defined as larger breed dogs under 4 years old and smaller breed dogs under 8 years old. In these states, more stringent spay and neuter laws and a culture that focuses less on hunting — and thus does not use hunting dogs — result in fewer dogs needing homes.

“In the North, they have different spay and neuter laws, and the shelters there are more full of less-adoptable dogs; whereas the North Carolina shelters are full of highly adoptable dogs often,” she said.

In Southern states like North Carolina, the hunting lobby is the most likely cause of dog overpopulation issues, Spadini said.

Melissa Niegro, president of rescue organization Tails of the Unwanted, said it is common to see dogs from hunting breeds, like beagles, coonhounds and German shorthaired pointers, in North Carolina shelters. Once these dogs get too old to hunt, their owners set them loose in the wild and the dogs get picked up by shelters, Niegro said.

“In states where there is a huge contingency of hunting dogs, it’s very hard to get legislation passed for spay and neuter laws,” Spadini said.

In places where shelter dogs are more readily available, people are more likely to surrender their dogs for trainable issues like barking or potty training failures, because they know they can return to the shelter and trade the dog in.

“People here consider dogs much more of a throwaway,” Spadini said.

Spadini said there are two main types of shelters: no-kill shelters and open access shelters, or “kill shelters.” Open access shelters cannot turn down animals, and quickly become overpopulated and have to euthanize animals as a result.

“A lot of these perfectly healthy, perfectly adoptable dogs are getting euthanized for space in North Carolina,” she said.

Many people do not understand how many dogs are euthanized in North Carolina and need more education on the importance of spaying and neutering their animals, she said. Proper post-adoption support is also important for success.

Once dogs are transported out of state, they get adopted much more quickly than they would in North Carolina. It could take anywhere from two months to three years for Old North Canine Rescue to adopt out a dog in this state, Spadini said.

“When we send our dogs to our northern rescue partner, most of them are adopted within two weeks,” she said. “Many of them are ‘adoption-pending’ before we get there.”

Since last September, when Spadini joined Old North Canine Rescue, the organization has saved more than 100 dogs. About 50 of those dogs have been saved in 2018 alone.

“Our experience has been very, very positive,” she said. “Our dogs have been on the Puppy Bowl. We follow them, we get updates. It’s just as if they were adopted from our own fosters, except there’s a little ‘bus ride’ in between.”

Pilots N Paws

For dogs traveling distances large and small on their way to foster families and adoptive homes, Pilots N Paws is a valuable resource. Pilots N Paws is a forum where organizations and individuals needing animal transport coordinate with volunteer pilots to fly animals where they need to go. The Pilots N Paws network spans the United States, and includes over 5,000 volunteer pilots who fly more than 15,000 rescue animals yearly, wrote Kate Quinn, executive director of Pilots N Paws, in an email.

Donn Hartley is a volunteer pilot for Pilots N Paws based in Asheville. He has transported dogs for five or six years through the forum. He estimates he has completed a dozen transport flights through Pilots N Paws, and is afraid to calculate how much he has spent over the years on dog transports. He can deduct flying costs — fuel and oil — through the nonprofit organization, but everything else, like maintenance and renting a hangar, is paid out-of-pocket.

“I sort of hate to go up and just bore holes in the sky and then come back and put the plane away,” he said. “I like to have a purpose to the missions, such as flying a dog from one place to another.”

Hartley is a self-described “dog person,” and has adopted one of the dogs he transported, a “poodle-esque” dog, after its new owners failed to show up to a coordinated meeting. He said he enjoys bringing dogs to their new families, and especially likes being present for the first meetings between dogs and their adoptive families.

“So far, they’ve all been really sweet dogs,” he said — even the dog who peed all over Hartley and his plane during a trip, and did the same to the next pilot.

“No big thing,” he said. “I have a washing machine in my house, and we got home safe.”

Leo’s first flight

Leo, a Golden Retriever mix, lived at the Randolph County Animal Shelter until he was rescued by CrisisDogsNC on Feb. 14, said Judith Texier, founder and director of CrisisDogsNC. Through CrisisDogsNC, Leo was adopted by a fire chief in Asheville, and needed to be transported from the Hillsborough area to his adoptive home.

Independent pilot Spencer Pascal found Texier’s listing on the Pilots N Paws forum, and volunteered to fly Leo from Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill on March 4. Today’s transport will cost Pascal around $200, but he is glad to volunteer his time and resources. Pascal said costs for transports can rapidly climb. He said it costs him about $100 an hour to fly — fuel can run $5-7 dollars per gallon, and his plane holds about 37 gallons — and pilots pay additional landing fees ranging from $25-40 depending on the size of the transport.

“You have to have passion for it,” he said.

Pascal met Texier at the airport, and the two exchanged Leo’s paperwork. Despite the dog’s anxiety, Pascal boarded Leo onto his plane without any issues and prepared for takeoff.

Texier watched as the plane taxied down the runway, happy to have been part of another rescue. As Pascal and Leo zoomed down the runway and soared into the cloudless sky, Texier watched from the ground until the plane disappeared from view.

“This is the best part,” she said. “This is the part you really live for.”

After a couple of weeks, Leo’s active temperament proved to be a bad fit for his adoptive family, but Texier said CrisisDogsNC is going to find him a new home.