After a week in North Carolina visiting 6 shelters, we learned a lot. Despite now visiting over 100 shelters, each visit teaches me something new about the challenges of saving dogs in the south and/or reminds me of some of the solutions. As exhausting as it can be, every single trip reinforces why we go…
Whenever we travel through Tennessee, we are lucky to have a homebase just outside of Nashville at the home of a rescue hero of mine. Laura Prechel is the mind and heart behind CASA Transport, which saved more than 2400 animals in 2022. Laura has been doing this for a long time and has saved…
We leave next week for shelter tour. This time to Virginia and North Carolina – one of the notorious five states killing the most animals, according to Best Friends Animal Society, the unofficial leader of the No-kill movement. In North Carolina, unlike most states, the law requires that every county animal shelter report its numbers…
Who Will Let the Dogs Out started after Nancy and I began visiting southern shelters to learn where all the dogs were coming from and why. We didn’t know how to fix the problem, but we knew we wanted to help. So we used the only skills we had – writing and photography. As we…
In 2011, hope came to Hope City Animal Control in Hope, Arkansas in the form of a new organization created specifically to save lives. At the time, the shelter was euthanizing 92% of the dogs (no cats—this city deems them free-roaming animals, so they are on their own). Enter this group of passionate women who…
Mayflower City Animal Control is tucked away in the back corner of a fenced-in property that houses the street and water departments (the sign says EMPLOYEES ONLY). It’s so tiny and unmarked that we had to call for directions when we were only 50 yards away. The tiny shelter has only nine outdoor kennels beside…
Our First Year! Thanks to you, in 2022, Who Will Let the Dogs Out: Your continued support and donations embolden us to travel further and do more to support the lifesaving work of shelters and rescues, AND find solutions to the crisis of too many unwanted dogs suffering. We believe the problem does not exist…
The team at Caldwell County KY Animal Shelter has too big a job and too few resources, yet they are getting it done. The shelter is located in a small metal building tucked away in the woods behind a county park. When we visited, they had about 40 dogs, but the shelter is meant to…
When we arrived at our first stop in Kentucky was at the Daviess County Animal Shelter, a group of middle school students was gathered in the parking lot waiting to tour the shelter. This was the first clue that this public open-intake shelter is something special. DCAS handles about three thousand animals a year. That…
Huntington Cabell Wayne Animal Control shelter in Huntington, West Virginia serves the residents of Huntington City and Cabell and Wayne Counties, about 100,000 people. We are big fans of municipalities that join together to pool resources and create a quality shelter like HCWAC. It’s smart sheltering. The shelter began in 1979 and functioned like a…
